Fuller lifts the needle. His arms are weight-lifter arms, the veins pushed to the surface by all the muscle. He doesn't need to tie off.
Good.
Fuller shoots up, waiting for the warm rush of heroin to flood through him.
The rush doesn't come.
'What the hell?'
'Barry? Did you say something?'
Fuller grits his teeth, staring at the empty syringe. That little Mexican bastard. What the hell did I just shoot up? Baking soda?
'Barry, I'm going west on Division. Barry?'
'Go right on Clybourn,' Barry growls. He raises the syringe to throw it across the room. But then . . .
Something happens.
It's a subtle change at first. The kitchen seems to come into sharper focus. Barry stares at his hand, and his stare magnifies his fist until it's the size of a baked ham.
Barry looks at his feet, and they also seem to grow. He's ten, fifteen, twenty feet tall. How can he fit in this tiny room? A-ha! The kitchen is growing with him, walls getting longer, wider, stretching out and out.
And as he's growing, the pain in his head is shrinking. Until it's a tiny spot -- a speck of minor irritation -- in the middle of his swollen eye.
Fuller giggles, and the sound echoes through his head deep and slow. He hears someone talking, and notices he's holding a phone.
'Barry? Are you there, Barry? What's the address?'
Address? Oh, it's Jack. She's coming to the party.
'Twenty-one sixty,' someone says. It's him. The words feel solid in his mouth, like they're made of clay and he's spitting them out rather than saying them.
This is fun.
He spins in a slow circle. The room moves with him, shifting and bending. When he stops, the room keeps moving, because he wills it to. He can control it. He can control everything.
'I'm a god.'
Fuller touches his face, feels the bandage. Gods don't need bandages. He rips it off, and that causes a spark of pain in his eye.
'No more pain.' His voice is thunder.
He glides over to the drawer, dumps the contents on the table.
A corkscrew.
It only hurts for a moment, and he cries a lot.
No, he's not crying.
It's blood.
He hears a car outside. A visitor.
All pain is gone now, replaced with something else.
Anger.
Jack Daniels is here. She's the one who put him in jail. She's the one who gave him these headaches.
She's trying to stop him from being a god.
He wipes some blood off of his cheek and balls his hands into fists.
'I'm in here, Jack.'
Chapter 51
'Fuller? Fuller, dammit, are you there?'
There's no answer. Where was he? Was Benedict still alive? What happened?
I disconnected and dialed 911, giving them the Clybourn address. Then I spun the cylinder on my .38, counted six bullets, and set my jaw.
Fear, anxiety, and all of my other neuroses be damned; I was going to go save my best friend.
I was three steps up the porch stairs when the door swung open.
Fuller filled the doorway, arms stretching out as if offering me a hug. His face was awash with blood, a gaping hole where his left eye used to be.
Training took over. I brought up my gun and grouped three shots in the midsection.
Rather than fall back, Fuller did something unexpected.
He lunged.
I caught him in the shoulder with the fourth shot, and then he was on me, knocking me backward, onto the
