Thief Of Souls

***

Eighty-four people to fix the next day.

The busy-bee faction of the Happy Campers didn’t bother bringing the wounded into the castle. The vans and trucks that carried them, simply dropped them off in the huge courtyard between the castle and the guest houses. They were all laid out before him, beneath the unshielded sun, like a scene from a brutal war.

Dillon knew he was still sidestroking.

But it was more like treading water, wasn’t it?

He wasn’t getting any closer to shore—he wasn’t anywhere near getting things under control. And all their good work wasn’t mending the fracturing world. Why was that? Each day there were more followers—not just the numbers of the healed, but others who had heard the stories and made the pilgrimage up the road from the Coast Highway. There were always people coming up the road now, all hours of the day and night, longing to be a part of the Big Fix, longing to be part of something larger than themselves.

“It’s human nature to see divinity in anything larger than oneself,” Okoya had said. Did these pilgrims mak­ing the trek to the castle think they were entering a new Jerusalem?

Dillon found himself wondering what his followers did all day while he threw his energies into repair work. Today he found out.

“We’ve tried to organize them for you,” said a woman with a clipboard as she stepped obliviously over the bodies beneath her. She had been there every day. Dillon had come to call her Nurse Hatchet, al­though she tended to speak more like a Realtor showing a house—which was probably her profession before she wound up here. “Broken bones and internal injuries are to the left, lost limbs and such to the right, and those that died during transport are by the fountain. Would you like something to drink?”

“No thank you.” Dillon looked around, hoping Lourdes would show up, to ease the pain all around him. But the others, he was told, were taking their time in coming.

“What about the sick?” asked Dillon. “Tory’s going to need to know where they are.”

“None today,” said Nurse Hatchet. “Only wounded.” She offered him a clean white smile, with teeth straighter than they had been yesterday.

Dillon didn’t return the smile. He wouldn’t force what wasn’t there. “What, have we cured all the sick in local hospitals?”

Nurse Hatchet hesitated. “Well . . . . yes,” she said. “That, too.”

Dillon turned to her, feeling a fresh pit open in his stomach. “What do you mean ‘too’?” He tried to read a pattern in her face, so he could divine what she meant—but found her strangely void of patterns. Strangely empty.

“To tell you the truth,” she said, “we gave up on hospitals days ago. Too much trouble. Besides—you never know what kind of people you’re going to get.”

Dillon stared at her, still not understanding. And so she pointed to a battered man by an overgrown bush. “That particular client is an architect,” she said cheer­ily. “He’ll help us build dormitories when there’s no room left in the castle and guest houses.” Then she pointed to a woman in a makeshift neck brace, who gasped every breath of air. “And she’s a well-known attorney. With her on our side, we can keep the au­ thorities away for as long as we want.”

“What are you telling me?” demanded Dillon.

“Don’t you see?” said Nurse Hatchet. “We made them for you to fix!”

Dillon felt the realization begin to surround his spirit, suffocating him with a truth he couldn’t yet face. What this woman was saying was unthinkable.

The woman grinned as if she had just sold a house. “And that’s just for starters. We’ve sent people out to bring you back some special orders. They’ll be showing up with some very important clients for you!”

Dillon felt his balance slipping and fell back against the fountain, almost falling in.

Eighty-four “clients” before him. People who had been in the best of health until the Happy Campers broke them, so that the Shards would have people to heal. Here was the reason why nothing they did made a difference! And what was even worse than the ruined people spread out before him, were the hundreds of followers who saw nothing wrong with it.

Dillon could imagine them stealing away in the night, selecting their victims, and brutalizing them in his name: breaking bones, tearing limbs, even killing them—for to the followers of the Shards, pain and death meant nothing anymore. To them, pain was a rite of passage, and death was merely a prelude to a mir­acle. How could he, of all people, not have seen this coming? That the consequences of healing was to cre­ate a bloody cult of sacrifice and resurrection. A surge was building in him now, rising like bile in his throat.

“Well, look at that!” said Nurse Hatchet, grinning at the fountain as if it were a well-trimmed Christmas tree. Dillon’s hand had inadvertently touched the water, undoing its random, chaotic spray. Reversing its en­tropy. Now the fountain flowed backward.

The woman showed her dimples, “My, you’re just one big barrel of miracles, aren’t you!”

The doors of the castle swung open and the other Shards stepped out, with Okoya close behind.

“Crowded today,” said Okoya, as he looked out over the dead and dying.

“Not a problem,” said Michael, “I’m ready to rock- and-roll.”

Dillon pulled himself together, knowing that he had no choice but to restore the hoards that had been bat­ tered for their benefit.

And he told the others nothing, for fear that they wouldn’t care.

***

Okoya found Dillon to be a maddeningly hard egg to crack—and was already considering all the ways he might destroy this willful, uncompromising star-shard should it become necessary. It would not be hard to turn the other four against Dillon now, for they had chosen their paths. They were already set against one another, and were growing enamored of their new life­styles, feeding off their exalted positions, and off their followers. If they perceived Dillon as a threat to that, they could, and would, destroy him. Or perhaps Dillon could be killed by his own followers. Okoya could find a way to reshape the situation, spinning the hoards of followers into a web that would ensnare Dillon, and tear him limb from limb.

But these were only last resorts. He would only need to be destroyed if he turned on Okoya and tried to unite the others against him. Dillon was a most powerful tool, and could be used in a great many inventive ways. With Dillon beneath his thumb, this well-fattened world could easily pass into Okoya’s hands, for him to dine on, or do with as he pleased.

And so Okoya waited, keeping his eye open for op­portunities . . . until the day the fountain flowed back­ ward, and Dillon discovered the deeds of his own minions.

Later that day, while the other four Shards lounged around the castle, occupied with their own concerns, Okoya climbed the steps to Dillon’s chambers, and talked the guard into letting him in, which was fairly easy, as the guard had no soul. Okoya held in his hand a small statuette of a robed figure, carved in pink onyx. Conveniently sized at eight inches, and warm to the touch, the figurine was a perfect gift for the Shard who had everything.

Okoya found Dillon in the bathroom—the shower to be exact—sitting fully clothed beneath the running wa­ ter, like a drunk trying to shock himself sober.

Okoya turned off the stream of water that sprayed into Dillon’s face. “If you’re trying to drown yourself, you should try one of the pools. They’re deeper.”

Dillon didn’t move an inch from the corner of the black marble shower. “Thanks for the advice. You can go now.”

“I’m impressed by your melodrama,” Okoya said, “but I have something here that might cheer you up.” Okoya placed the figurine on the narrow edge of the tub, right in front of Dillon. “I found it deep in the basement,” Okoya lied. “Look at the craftsmanship! It might be thousands of years old, and its edges are still smooth.”

Dillon eyed it, studied it, but this statue wasn’t meant for his eyes.

“What an incredible story this piece must have to tell,” Okoya teased. “What delicious patterns of history you’ll be able to uncover just by touching it.” Okoya sat on the edge of the tub, sliding closer.

“Touch it, Dillon,” he intoned. “Feel every pattern, every texture in your fingertips. Your hands have given so much to others. . . . Now it’s time to take something back . . .”

Okoya could tell Dillon was drawn to it, and for a moment thought he might seize it and lose himself in sensory overload, savoring the banquet of texture and pattern Okoya had so carefully layered into the figu­rine’s