Nocturnal: A Novel

Rex inside and let go of his hand. The grinding sound again, then the sound of Marco’s steps.

A light came to life.

Another basement. This one seemed completely unused. Rex looked around the place. It was a real crap- hole. There wasn’t even furniture, just a back corner strewn with blankets and a beat-up wicker chair. A single naked bulb hung from the ceiling, held up only by its long, black electrical cord. A pile of clothes sat in one corner.

This place was scary. This was the kind of place you’d think child rapists took children. But Rex knew Marco wasn’t a rapist. Rex also knew you didn’t need a grungy basement to rape a kid.

Father Maloney hadn’t needed one.

Since fleeing the house, Rex had been running behind Marco. Now that they were face-to-face, Rex saw that the bloodstains on Marco’s white wife-beater had spread, making the man’s shirt pinkish-red although he didn’t appear to be bleeding anymore. Marco didn’t seem concerned about what looked like a serious wound.

“Place is a mess,” Rex said. He didn’t know what else to say.

Marco froze. His eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry. You want me to clean?”

“Uh, no. It’s fine.”

Marco let out a huge sigh of relief. How funny — this man had killed a cop with a hatchet, but he was afraid of what Rex thought? It didn’t make sense, but then again, nothing did. So much happening, all of it so overwhelming — Roberta, that cop, Oscar, Jay, the dreams, the drawings, this man, the gun … now this man’s dirty place in the basement of some building Rex didn’t know.

This strange man, who seemed to … to worship Rex.

Marco stripped off his ruined shirt. He tossed it to the floor and walked to the pile of clothes. He dug around for a second, then found another wife beater and put it on. It wasn’t “clean” by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it wasn’t bloody.

“Marco, how long are we staying here?”

“Until dark,” he said. “Best to move at three or four in the morning. I shouldn’t have killed that cop, my king. Cops will be missed. But I didn’t know what else to do. He was pointing a gun at you.”

Rex remembered the shaggy-haired, gold-toothed cop kicking in the bedroom door, aiming that gun at his face, telling him to lie down on the floor. That cop had wanted to hurt Rex. Everyone wanted to hurt Rex.

Everyone except Marco.

“You saved me,” Rex said. “Thank you.”

Marco looked down and away. “Anything for you, my king.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Because it’s what you are.” Marco breathed deeply through his nose. “I can smell it. We’ll stay here. Then Sly and Pierre and others will come.”

Those names again, the names from his dreams. “Are they the ones that killed Oscar and Jay?”

Marco nodded. “I helped. We want to hurt the people that hurt you, my king.”

My king. This wasn’t a trick. This wasn’t a game. These strangers had killed for him. Killed the people who had made his life hell.

“How did you know about Oscar and Jay?”

“We felt your hate,” Marco said. “It started a few days ago. Maybe a week — I’m not so good with time. We saw images of the people who hurt you. Only those of us who walk on the streets, though. The others, they ain’t felt nothing. I’ve never felt anything like it, my king. Sly thinks we were seeing parts of your dreams.”

A week ago. That was about the time Rex got sick. He’d started dreaming a few days after that.

“We felt your hate for the preacher,” Marco said. “And for those other boys. We searched every night. We found them all. At first, Sly told us to wait, because Firstborn wouldn’t want us to act.”

Firstborn … had Rex heard that name in his dreams? “Who is Firstborn?”

“He runs things,” Marco said. “He’ll be so mad when he finds out, but … well, people hurt you. We had to kill your enemies.”

Marco said that last sentence like it was the most obvious thing in the world, something as natural and inevitable as drawing a breath.

Father Maloney. Oscar and Jay. Rex wished he could have seen them die.

“The people who hurt me,” Rex said. “There are more of them, the ones in the drawing in my room. Alex and Issac. Do you know where they are?”

Marco looked down again. He said nothing.

“Marco, are they still alive? Do you know where they are?”

Marco nodded. “Yeah, we know where they are. Sucka is following them.”

Rex didn’t know that name, but if Alex and Issac were being followed, maybe Rex could watch them die. They’d beat him. They’d tortured him. And why? He’d never done anything to them. People like that deserved death. Rex thought of the strength he’d felt when he wrapped that belt around his mother’s neck.

He wasn’t the same helpless kid who couldn’t stop Alex Panos from breaking his arm. That kid was gone forever.

“Take me to them,” Rex said.

Marco shook his head so hard his long beard flopped from side to side. “No, my king! Sly would want me to keep you safe. I need to call him when he comes out again, so we can take you home.”

Rex wasn’t going home, not ever again. Then he realized that Marco wasn’t talking about Roberta’s house.

“Home? Where is that?”

Marco looked down again. “It’s where we live.”

Maybe Rex would live there, too. It was probably a lot different from the only home he’d known for thirteen years.

“Marco, how did you know where I lived?”

“Sly told me.”

“How did Sly know?”

Marco shrugged. “Sly says that’s not important. But I think maybe Hillary told him where to go.”

Hillary? Another name that didn’t ring any bells. Who were these people? And why did they think Rex was their king?

Maybe … maybe because Rex really was a king. Maybe he’d always been a king, and just hadn’t realized it.

But right now, none of that mattered. What mattered was the hate burning in his chest. Hate for Issac, hate for Alex. He couldn’t stop thinking about revenge. Rex had power now, and those two would pay for what they had done.

He wouldn’t accept anything less.

“I want to know where Issac and Alex are,” Rex said. “I want to watch them die.”

Marco shook his head. “No, no, Sly would kick my ass!”

“Marco, am I your king?”

Marco stared, then nodded slowly.

Rex felt so confident, so strong.

“If I’m you’re king, then you have to do what I say. Tonight, we’re going to get Alex Panos.”

Aftermath

A news helicopter hovered overhead. A uniformed cop waved Pookie’s shit-brown Buick between two black- and-whites that blocked off Pacific Street. Outside this improvised perimeter, a mostly Chinese crowd gathered, staying as far away as they could from the scowling cops while still being able to see the action in front of the house.

Inside the perimeter, more police cars — marked and unmarked — were already parked, their lights flashing.