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A fresh bottle in hand, Tommy sauntered into the vault and to the
rack. The judge’s screams were silent now, his eyes bulging, and every tendon
stark and white. The leather strap on one wrist began to tear with the force of
the judge’s pain.
Tommy gave a low whistle. “Man, I’ve never seen that
happen.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, I bet you’d like it to stop for a
while.” To the knife, he said, “Knife cease and return.”
The knife remained buried in the groin.
Tommy said it louder, his voice edged with anger. “Knife.”
When the knife didn’t move, he reached out and with a casual
twist, ripped the blade free. Only the straps restraining him kept Harrison from
following. The judge shrieked once and flopped back. The knife hissed, the tip
bending back towards the hand.
Scowling, Tommy said, “Obey.”
The knife straightened and became ridged, the eye closing.
Tommy lay it in the leather and flipped one edge over the knife.
The air warmed, and he tickled the bottom of the judge’s foot. The man didn’t
move. With a grimace of distaste, Tommy felt for a pulse. It was there, but
faint. He pulled open a sack of blood and stuck a needle in the judge’s arm. A
second needle held enough methamphetamine to kill a horse. He slid the needle
into the tube and depressed the plunger.
A minute later the judge shuddered and began to scream.
“Hey.” Tommy had to shout over the screams. He gripped the
shuddering flesh of Harrison’s thigh and grinned. “Now, wasn't that fun?”
He picked up half of the rubber gag and whistled in admiration at how it had
been bitten through. “Where’s the rest?”
He pried open Harrison’s jaws and saw black shreds of rubber.
Tommy’s eyes widened.
“You swallowed it?”
The building shook with the force of another blast. A crack ran up
the wall. Like the man said, nothing was foolproof.
The door bent inwards, and Anna dived behind the stove. She saw the
inlet for the gas and turned it off, just in case.
The door shattered. A man in black raced in, firing an automatic.
A loudspeaker blared an earsplitting shriek. Anna clapped her hands over her
ears, but the subsonic in it made a trickle of blood drip from her nose. Glasses
shattered, then the plates.
“Animal Control. Come out
with your hands up.”
She stuffed cigarette butts in her ears. Blinking and a little
disoriented, Anna peeked around the edge of the stove. A knife lay near her,
along with what remained of the crockery and plasticware, vibrating from sonic
waves. She took the knife, tested the edge, and shrugged.
Not good carbon steel, but it would do.
She came up and threw it at the face shield. It bounced off
without scratching the plastic, but by that time Anna had kicked free the gas
petcock and ran past him. A man wearing a Harvester logo charged her. Anna
grabbed a chair and smashed it over the black faceplate. She saw a shattered
window and dived out that, racing away into the woods.
A dog howled. The canine handler released a dog, and it lunged
after her.
Anna slid into the trees and waited.
Snarling, the Bloodhound whipped into the woods. Anna called
softly in the secret language of the Longhouse Gili Yu. The Gili House produced
experts at handling dogs; the power was from the spirit world. A few were
experts at the art of shape shifting, as well. When she found the family that
changed Carl, someone’s liver was going to end up missing or she wasn’t a
Susquehannock Wy:O:Ming.
The dog slid to a halt, his belly to the damp earth and trembling.
Run, she told the dog. Run
until tomorrow.
The dog shot away yammering and howling. Men and more dogs raced
after it. When they were gone, Anna slipped back to reconnoiter at the edge of
the trees. Seated at the back of a Harvester unit were what remained of the
illicit butcher crew, destined to become meat themselves. Narrowing her vision,
she saw the shotgun and driver. The butcher crew was the new drug runners and
black marketers of the new age, but the other two were from home.
She wrapped a vision of blindness around herself. She eased out.
As she neared the Harvesters, she smelled tobacco smoke and smiled. From flowers
to leaves to the very roots, this was the most useful plant in any Native’s
herbal. Anna raised her hands in worship of the Tsi:lo:V, the Beloved Speaker.
“Sacred herb, destroyer of the evil ones, blessed is your sweet
odor, Brother Wolf-of-the-Sun. May all who despise you drown in their own
wastes.”
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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