Thicker Than Blood - The Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy

'Luther, I apologize. I feel terrible about what happened. You have to believe that. I’m so sorry I left you —'

'To freeze and bleed to death in the desert. I’m sure you are now. But aren’t you curious?'

'About what?'

'How I escaped.'

'Oh, well yes—'

'It was the damnedest thing, Andrew. One of the Maddings’ ranch hands showed up on a snowmobile about an hour after you left. Young man saved my life. Took my place on the porch. If it wasn’t for him, I guess you’d be doing a lot better right now.'

They began to rub my legs and forearms with a peculiar solemnity, sousing with warm saltwater wherever my skin touched the copper plating.

Don’t you dare beg these monsters for your life. It’s what they get off on.

'Maxine, please look at me.'

She looked at me.

'What if it were Luther sitting here? Wouldn’t you want someone to show your son a little mercy?' On 'mercy' my voice broke. 'I’m someone’s son, too.'

'Not anymore,' Luther said.

There was a can of unleaded gasoline sitting next to a circular saw. Rufus picked it up, unscrewed the gas cap on the generator, and topped off the tank.

'Beautiful, would you christen the chair?'

The old woman picked up a bottle of Cook’s from behind a stack of unused lumber, stepped toward me, and swung the bottle into the chairback. It broke off at the neck, soaking my lap with warm fizzing spumante.

Maxine said, 'And we’re operational.'

The Kites applauded, hugs all around.

'Remember, son,' Rufus said, 'we don’t have all night. Keep in mind we’re not safe here anymore. We need to be on the first ferry of the morning. Now, Andrew, don’t you worry about little Violet. She’s coming with us. I think my boy has a crush.'

Maxine and Rufus stepped back, standing arm-in-arm in a corner as Luther approached the generator.

'No,' I said, 'please don’t do that, Luther just wait a—'

When he gripped the pullstring I raged against the restraints.

To my surprise, Luther waited, watching me with a sort of perverse patience, allowing me to exhaust myself, making sure I knew I wasn’t leaving his chair under my own strength.

I quit struggling.

Nothing left.

Hyperventilating dizzy black stars.

I looked at Luther.

Looked at Rufus and Maxine.

At Violet.

She was sitting up now, her eyes closed, lips moving.

Are you praying for my soul?

Luther yanked the pullstring and the generator roared to life, flooding the small stone room with the stench of gasoline and a growling lawnmower-like clatter.

He squeezed his hands into a pair of rubber gloves and spit out the white pit of a Lemonhead, looming before me now, one hand grasping the skullcap wire, the other holding a wire sticking out of the vibrating generator.

All they had to do was touch.

He adjusted his grip, the ends just inches apart.

I haven’t made peace with anything.

And the circuit closed, a blue stream of electrons arcing between the wires, sparks flying, the generator sputtering, a sharp coldness spreading from my head through my knees to the ends of my toes, the current glutting me with its boundless ache.

Then came a lightning slideshow of last images:

Smoke rising from my arms—my body shaking—the Kites’ fixation on my pain—Violet slipping out of the room—my world detonating into pure and blinding white.

64

THE generator shuddered to a halt.

Andrew Thomas sat motionless in the chair, candy-scented smoke rising from his arms and legs, bellowing out of the skullcap.

In the new silence, soft sizzles could be heard emanating from his body.

Luther put an ear to Andrew’s heart and listened.

After a moment, Rufus said, 'We good?'

Luther grinned.

'If it is beating, I can’t hear it and it won’t be for long.'

Luther started unbuckling one of the wrist restraints but Rufus said, 'Just leave him, son. We don’t have time to mess with…where’s Violet?'

Vi was running through a pitchblack corridor, her hands and mouth still duct-taped, praying again for the soul of Andrew Thomas.

She stopped and took five deep breaths through her nose.

The generator was silent now and somewhere in the black maze she heard the Kites coming.

And she was running again—straight into a door.

The way out.

She kicked the door open and moved through into a place of awful-smelling darkness.

The old woman’s voice echoed down the tunnel.

Vi closed the door with her foot, eyes desperate for even a sliver of light.

All around her burgeoned the fetor of death.

Just keep walking. This is the way out.

She walked headfirst into someone’s chest.

The person moved away and she jumped back into someone else.

She shrieked through the tape as the door behind her burst open.

A lantern illuminated the room and what she saw in that firelit semidark brought Vi to her knees.

There were perhaps ten of them, hanging by chains from the ceiling, in various stages of decay, their feet just inches off the floor so they appeared to stand of their own volition.

Why have You sent me to hell?

Though she knew the Kites were standing in the threshold behind her, blocking the only way out, Vi couldn’t resist the impulse to look at the faces all around her.

Some had been there for a long long time and they’d disintegrated into carrion, rags, and bones.

The boy who’d tried to save them dangled in a mangle of damage in a far corner.

The ones she’d bumbled into were still swinging—two men near where she knelt, their clothes and wounds still fresh, heads drooped down, masked in gloom.

She peered up at their faces—wrecked.

One of the men was large and mustached.

The other was thinner, taller, younger, and something fluttered in Vi’s brain.