“I’m really close to breaking through,” Tamara Schimmer protested.
Warren stared at his mother. She was Jewish and white, with pale skin, dark hair that hung in ringlets, and dark eyes that constantly looked bruised. She often forgot to eat and take care of herself because of her studies.
Get me out of here, Warren thought desperately. This has already happened. I don’t want to relive it again. But he was trapped in the nightmare once more. His eight-year-old self buried his head in the pillow as he had all those years ago.
“I needed things,” his mother continued.
Warren knew her argument wasn’t going to work. It never did. There was no one in the world as right as Martin DeYoung was when he decided he was right.
“The money I’ve spent trying to get in touch with my power isn’t going to matter,” his mother said. “Once I’ve achieved my mastery over the arcane—”
Warren knew bad things were going to happen. When Martin drank as heavily as he did now, bad things always happened. He’d had a bad day at the track, or on the ball games. He was constantly betting. Bookies and enforcers often looked for him. Warren had seen them.
“Mastery!” Martin’s voice was so strong and unforgiving that Warren thought the windows might break. “You can’t even manage a house, you cow! We live in filth!”
The social services people had sometimes told Warren’s mom that, too. They’d threatened to take Warren away from her. Only she’d moved, leaving everything but her books on lore and magic. Those were the things she prized above all else. She’d studied those every moment she had.
Martin continued his rant. “I work hard all day—”
“You’re a thief!” his mother interrupted. “Don’t you go getting sanctimonious with me!”
Anger mottled Martin’s face, turning it even darker.
“I know what you are!” his mother continued. “You and your friends just—”
When Martin stood, Warren bailed off the bed and climbed behind the couch. It was where he always hid anytime they had a fight. The couch wasn’t much of a hiding place. Martin always found him and beat on him, but Warren had always tried to do something to save himself another round of pain.
“I needed that money!” Martin said. “I had it hid! You shouldn’t have gone into my private stuff!”
“You live here!” his mother replied. “I put a roof over your head! What I took wouldn’t even pay your rent!”
“You get this place free through social services ’cause you were stupid enough to get yourself knocked up! You’re getting a free ride! My money is my money! I told you that from the beginning!”
Warren buried his face in the couch, hoping the nightmare would end soon.
FORTY-EIGHT
Warren knew the dream usually ended quickly at this point. Although he didn’t want to, he peered around the side of the couch because his eight-year-old self had all those years ago.
Martin took a large, short-barreled pistol from the back of his waistband. Light glinted on his gold watch and ring, and from the pistol’s shiny silver barrel. Cursing, he trained the weapon on Warren’s mother.
She didn’t move. He’d aimed pistols at her enough over the months they’d been together that she no longer cared. He’d never once fired at her.
Martin rolled the hammer back. White flecks of spit showed on his blue-black lips. Then he squeezed the trigger.
Five thunderous roars filled the room.
Although he hadn’t wanted to, Warren screamed in fear as his mother jerked and started bleeding from her chest, abdomen, and face. She was already dead, but his eight-year-old self hadn’t known that then.
Drunk on the whiskey and his own sense of empowerment, Martin opened the weapon’s cylinder and shook the empty casings onto the floor. He thumbed new bullets into the cylinder and stared at Warren.
“Now you’re gonna get yours, you little ape!” Martin snarled. “I’ve been getting sick near to death looking at you, listening to your mother talk about her ideas about magic and you! I ain’t gonna have to listen no more, though!” He snapped the cylinder closed and took aim.
Warren screamed, but he no longer heard his voice. Martin fired the pistol. The bullet struck Warren’s right hip and knocked him down. Panic filled him when he saw all the blood coming from the hole in his side. He hurt, but he was numb, too.
Martin fired again, but the second shot cored the wall above Warren’s head. A puff of white powder jetted from the plasterboard.
“No!” Warren screamed. He wanted to beg his stepfather not to shoot him, to call the hospital for his mother, but he couldn’t. He tried to talk, but he couldn’t.
“Ain’t gonna do you any good to beg,” Martin said. “I’m gonna shoot you right in the head. I’ll never have to see you in this life again.” He took aim.
Warren looked at the man and let loose all of the hate he’d held back for months. His mother had said that she’d wanted him to get along with Martin. Warren had tried. He’d always tried to do what his mother had asked, even if it was something he hadn’t wanted to do or didn’t see the need to do.
“I hate you!” Warren screamed. Then in a calm, wishful voice, he said, “I wish you were dead.”
A smile crawled across Martin’s face. “I guess you got some backbone after all. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.” He took aim.
Warren lay helpless on the floor.
Then, incredibly, Martin didn’t fire. Instead, he turned the pistol back on himself. He begged and pleaded for help as he pressed the pistol barrel to his temple.
Then he pulled the trigger.
The crack echoed through the flat. Warren’s nose filled with the scent of charred meat. He lay quietly on the floor, waiting to wake up in his bed. As he continued to lay there, he heard the shouts
