Wheel rut

Karaoke. I haven’t done this…ever. Back when I was still human, when The Kill just meant a hostile takeover, back in college, back in high school…I never really had any friends. No, I was too busy for that.

In high school I had my eye on college. In college I had my eye on my career. Once I had my career, I had my sights on owning the place. Then the next place and the next. I never spent much time looking around me where I was at the time. The people around me, the things I was doing. It just didn’t seem as important.

It never occurred to me that when my father taught me to always do my best, to always reach as far as I can, that it might mean being a good friend too.

They all know what I am and they all know what I’ve done and still they drink with me and smile at me. I’m not good at this, but I’m glad I tried. They’re worth it.

And if I ever forget that I only have to look at Penny. “I heard the Rose another time,” she said. “…When I first saw James. His song is the same as the Rose.”

They can probably see the tears and I rub at my eyes to hide them, but it’s out of reflex. They can surely feel how hard that hit me through our shared khef. This ka-tet is so much different than the Top Hat Cats. Lex was my only friend in those days, and I couldn’t have cared less for the rest of them. No I have a real family and I really understand what ka-tet means.

Please God help me. Ka is a wheel and it always returns to where it started. Please God help me not to betray them this time.

The Kill

Lex was there for me and he helped me get through many of those first awful shocks and he showed me how to survive in the Court of the Crimson King. But there are some things you have to learn alone.

My first few days as a vampire were sort of a waking nightmare. The plane trip back to New York from Nassau barely registered. I only clearly remember one moment, wondering if I would pass customs or if my undead nature would somehow tip them off. It almost did.

They had a dog at the x-ray machines, sitting and watching the people walk through the metal detectors. Even though we were leaving JFK and the dog was watching the flow of traffic on the other side it stood up suddenly, its whole body strung tight as a wire. It growled low in its throat, something felt more than heard. It would have been impossible to pick out its rumbling snarl from the white noise of footsteps and announcements and conversation, but I could almost feel the dog focus on me.

The handler was looking around trying to spot what the dog had picked up. He was looking mostly at the sheep filing through the metal detector. How could he not see me? I felt like a spotlight had been trained on me, picking me out, outlining me in light. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d been alone.

Of course, there was no way Sayre would have sent me back to New York alone. We both knew I would have bolted. Or killed myself. A can toi who called himself Judas (whose mother – if things like him had them – must have really hated him), and another vampire like me, named Arnold, walked on either side of me.

Judas turned and looked at the dog, grinning. It might’ve been the electric blue zoot suit that made my eyes water, or how it clashed with the coat so yellow I decided it must be the color of a migraine, but I felt it was more. Just like I could feel the dog’s intent on us, I felt it snap back out from Judas. I saw the dog tremble like just-struck tuning fork, even its tail held rigid. I imagined a wire tightening around its throat, choking it like Darth Vader in those movies.

The dog whined and ignored the handler who was talking to it and tugging its leash, and then it sagged, dropping to the floor and tucking its tail between its legs. I felt Judas give the dog’s mind another twist, like a bully yanking a smaller boy’s arm just a little more, even after he’s cried uncle, and then he let go.

That was the only clear thing that stood out until I met Lex. I remember I kept rubbing my eyes as if that could make the colors come back. But no matter how hard I knuckled my straining eyes, everything remained muted, even the garish colors worn by the Low Men. The only thing that really stood out in those first days were the dark blue auras around Arnold and the other vampires.

I began learning the basics from Lex, trying to choke down the ugly reality of the Crimson King, can toi, and taheen. I stayed in an apartment down Lexington from the Dixie Pig with Arnold. He’d go out and ask if I wanted to come and I’d refuse. I didn’t want any part of whatever he was doing. Until I started to get sick.

With each passing day I felt like I was sinking into the ground. I couldn’t seem to straighten my back all the way and lifting my head took too much concentration and effort to bother with. My hands started to shake. I knew that Lex and his friends (people he called his ka-tet, a term I’d come to understand, and a damned circle which I would come to be a part of), noticed. I wondered if I was dying and I hoped I was. And I wondered if they were going to kill me for being so useless, and I hoped they were.

There came a day when I tried to run. I was afraid of being a vampire and I was afraid of all these creatures who were my only company. I regretted leaving Lex, he seemed like a nice…thing, but I couldn’t stand it any more. I knew that they were watching me, that they would follow me, and maybe kill me. I didn’t care.

I headed back to my penthouse on 38^th to the surprise of my doorman. I brushed by him without a word and drug myself up to my rooms. I was going to lie down and sleep for a century. And unless it was to find that this had all been an elaborate nightmare, like a prank carried on too long, I didn’t want to wake up.

It felt like it took an hour just to cross the room to my bed. I stood in front of it, feeling empty, hollow. I felt that when I fell forward onto the thousand dollar sheets that I might shatter like a porcelain doll. The doorbell rang and for a moment I thought it was those faint chimes that sometimes sounded in the back of my mind. Through the door I heard a faint voice calling.

“James? James are you back? Dennis said he just saw you downstairs.” I turned slowly towards the door. A key scraped in the lock and then the doorknob turned. I hadn’t set the chain.

Rachel came through, looking right and left. I’d been dating her for about a month, a real New York beauty. She was tall, blonde, and had huge fake tits. I couldn’t remember if I’d gotten bored of her yet. I was surprised at the concern in her voice.

“James? Ja- Oh my God! James, what happened to you?” She ran across the penthouse and wrapped her arms around me, pressing her giant breasts against me. I couldn’t feel her heartbeat through all of the silicone, but I could hear it beating just under the skin at her neck. “You were supposed to be back days ago. What’s wrong? What happened at the meeting?”

“They… I…. He…” I couldn’t quite get the words out, I didn’t know how to start. I wasn’t even sure if I was trying to lie, or tell her what really happened. Would she believe me if I told her? Could she see the dark blue shroud that swirled around me? Could she smell the tang of burnt metal?

“I need you…” was what finally came out. She pulled back so she could look me in the eye. Bright tears were welling up, threatening to ruin her mascara.

“Oh, James…” and she kissed me. I’d always been very careful with Rachel, and every woman before her, not to let them get too attached. Somewhere in the back of my mind the old James Cain was kicking himself for that line, for letting her think that I was getting attached as well. But another part, the new James Cain was saying, I’m a fucking vampire. What does any of it matter any more?

We fell back onto the bed together and I didn’t shatter. Her perceived intimacy lent her an intensity so different than the usual wild bouncing I previously enjoyed.

“I need you too, James,” she breathed against my neck. “I love you,” she said as she slipped me into her.

“I need you…” I said again. Everything was colored in shades of ashy gray, except for the violent blue radiating off of me like the warped air over a fire. And as I swelled inside of her, it swelled around me, inky tendrils of blue darkness reaching out, and wrapping around her. And I realized just how I needed her.

My fangs kissed her throat and dark blood welled up around them. When it touched my lips I lost myself. Hot metallic life was pouring into my mouth. I pulled my fangs free from her flesh and freed the blood to flow. A burning river surged from her into me, even as my spend surged into her. I remember seeing bright red all over her neck and down her white shoulder and I thought, Color! It’s beautiful!

Rachel didn’t seem to feel the prick of my fangs, or even the heat of our sex. She seemed drugged, she only moaned incoherently and then faded into silence. I was as lost as she was. From the moment that her blood touched my lips until I stood over her wondering why she was so still, I knew nothing.

She lay there on the black silk on my bed, pale against the dark sheets. Her fake tan had been drained away and all the color was gone again. Except for a fading blue circle around her throat. My own blood went cold, and I feared for a second that I’d turned her into a vampire as well. But as I paced and panicked she continued to lie there and the light ringing her neck dimmed and then disappeared. The punctures in her throat were gone too. She was just dead.

I was so grateful that I hadn’t turned her, hadn’t damned her as I was damned, that her death didn’t sink in right away. But she persisted in lying dead and naked on the bed and it began to sink in that she wasn’t going to get up and get dressed and go away. I’d killed a person.

If they’d already given me a gun I would have used it on myself right away and left a strange crime scene for the cops. I didn’t know then what would happen to my body when I died, that it would disappear like smoke. I paced, shaking, clenching my fists until they cramped. I didn’t even realize right away how much better I felt.

My head didn’t clear right away, but it cleared enough for me to call Lex. What else could I do? When he arrived with the Top Hat Cats in tow, I was still naked, sitting on the floor next to the bed, looking at Rachel crying.

I heard Lex’s voice behind me, speaking quietly. Or maybe he was speaking normally and I was just too stunned to hear any of it. Arnold and the Can toi Cats went to the bed and began wrapping Rachel in the stained sheets. Lex knelt next to me and put his furry paws on my shoulders.

“It is better this way, James. You are no longer a hume, you are a vampire now. But this has not changed your fundamental nature. You’re a killer, James. I see that in you already. I see potential in you as well. I believe you have it in you to be a great killer.”

I was shaking my head silently, denying him with that mute gesture, but falsely. I knew I was good at The Kill. I prided myself on it. Hadn’t I gone down to Nassau to make The Kill? I was of two minds. A quiet voice that told me that murder was wrong, and a second voice, growing steadily stronger – as if the blood gave it strength – that was telling me that this is what I was born for.

The Cats cleaned it all up, of course. Rachel Downs just disappeared. And I hit the streets.

I saw that blue glow here and there. It was like a neon sign saying “good food here,” or “dinner special!” or maybe “Eat at Joe’s.” Except that it was really “Eat Joe.” There were men and women and children with the vampiric collar, it didn’t seem to matter. I’d follow one for a while and slowly catch up to them. I’d drape an arm around their shoulders and steer them somewhere dark. They were all like sheep, following trustingly, lifting their chins and bearing their throats.

But that was too easy. Like Lex said, I was good at The Kill. Those who were already marked were easy prey and I didn’t have any interest in easy prey. So I always hunted fresh targets. I liked women, for obvious reasons, the harder to get the better. I hunted women and also the tough guys, the bikers and bangers who thought they were bad. But they found out quickly what really bad was.

“Give me your clothes, whitebread!” The kid shouted. The young black boy had followed me down the street and around the corner just like I wanted him to. I wasn’t at all surprised he wanted me to strip down, I was wearing more money than his whole family probably made in a year. “Don’t make me cut you and mess up the threads, mahfa!”

I left him standing there on the sidewalk, the knife he held dangling from limp fingers. His eyes were open and still, then he blinked once. He blinked again, then again and seemed to come back to himself. I was already gone. I watched him walk away, looking over his shoulder, from my place in the shadows. The only mark of my attack was the circle of blue light around his neck. He didn’t know it yet, but now he was the victim.

I loved it and I hated it. When I couldn’t stand it anymore I’d stop drinking, but I was afraid of what I’d do if I got that hungry again. Drinking isn’t a conscious action once I put my fangs in. It’s like a baby’s latching response. Once their lips touch the nipple they suck and suck until they’ve had their fill or the milk runs dry. I’m barely even conscious when it happens. So starving myself never lasted long.

I was hooked, and this wasn’t some addiction that I could sweat out. I was a blood junkie. And I was addicted to The Kill.

Ka

This is ka, I thought as I took my turn at the hole that Ashleigh had drilled into the roof. Below us was a shooting range and the next thought that followed was, I've been here before.

The day before, I waited in the shooting range in the basement of the Tet building at Number 2 Hammerskjold Plaza. I spent an hour or two there a day, and brought Penny there a couple of times a week. The kid picked up quickly, though sometimes got a little bored if I made her strip and clean her gun too much. She seemed to like helping me with mine better. Maybe she just likes the big guns.

She seemed excited today, because we were all going to shoot together. It's not the same as shooting together when you have to run to cover and cross each others lines of fire, but we needed the practice. I had a sore shoulder that told me that Alistair needed to spend a little more time down here.

The genius was a pretty good shot, though. I don't know much about crossbows, so he's going to have to just practice if he wants to get fast. I guess he has his own way about it, though. He had some sort of pump-action reloading going on. I've never seen anything like it, so I figured it was something he cooked up himself.

Ashleigh was also pretty good, but then, like Alistair, he was a field agent. He'd been out there, working sabotage and trading fire with Regulators before. Of course by his own admission he didn't have a lot of finesse. Well, dropping a car on someone is quite nice, but most of the time it's not the best idea. I had him picking wingnuts off the bench with his mind. He wanted to test something else out as well, some kind of shield he made. Like Alistair he was always making something. I was pretty surprised that something that came from thin air could stop bullets - low calibur ones at least.

Eden handled herself and her gun pretty well. I guess in her when Viet Nam hadn't been that long ago. She still remembered how to shoot. I wasn't too worried about her, not even in combat. She kept her head pretty well when we popped into her life with the lead flying.

It was with Penny and Carrie that I spent most of my time. Carrie didn’t think she could do it, and that was a problem. I never thought of myself as much of a teacher. I'd never tutored anyone and my academic career was as much a solo affair as my business career had been. But I found myself down in that shooting range, the one who'd shot the most people and been shot the most times and everyone looking at me whenever there was a question.

It made me think back to the last time I was here.

No, not this same range, but one very much like it. The top hat inked onto my hand was still vivid black and fresh when Lex took me to some warehouse outside of New Jersey, one of the places on Earth where the Low Men whiled their time away blowing holes in things and pretending to be human.

I remembered standing at the range with Lex next to me, showing me how to load the simple handgun.

"It looks dirty," I told him doubtfully. It was the first time I had ever held a gun. I didn't like the idea of it blowing up in my face.

"It's a range gun, it gets used a lot, but is seldom cleaned. There are other guns if you want another one." Lex held out his paw for the weapon and I stared at it, still a little shocked at the neat gray fur and the smooth leather pads and the white tips of his retracted claws.

"Can't I just clean this one?" I asked him. Lex paused and looked at me. I might've thought he was sizing me up to eat when I first saw him, but I knew differently now.

"If you wish to learn," He answered.

And so he showed me how to clean a gun and reload it quickly. I could almost do it in my sleep inside of a month. When he gave me the heavy guns, I was glad. These weren't cheap automatics that I felt like throwing away if they jammed on me. I wanted clean, working guns that could make The Kill when they had to.

Like Penny, like Carrie and the others, I picked it up quickly. I was already good at The Kill. Lex made me better.

"This thing is huge, the bullets are going to go everywhere," I told Lex. The Thompson rested uneasily in my hands, black and oiled and deadly. I had no illusions that I was going to be able to put so much as a single round through the bullseye.

"The bullets will go where you want them to go," the gray cat told me. I looked at him doubtfully. This was a lot different than learning how to take this gun apart and put it back together.

"I'm not psychic, you know?"

"I'm not talking about psychic powers, James. I'm talking about will." He put his paw on my shoulder and I looked up into his jade-colored eyes. "You're fast James. And you have good eyes. You can see your target and pull the trigger. But your enemies will be fast too. And their eyes will be sharp." The points of his claws dug into my shoulder through my heavy coat.

I could feel what he was talking about. I could feel his will radiating out from him like heat from a fire that was one errant breeze from going out of control. I felt then that if he wanted to kill me I would be dead. Not because of his claws or gun, but just because he wanted me dead.

"The one who wins is the one with the stronger will to win. When you draw your gun, you must decide that your target is already dead. When you aim your gun, you must will them to die. See the bullets ripping into them. See them die." His voice was as smooth as ever, deep and strong. I felt hypnotized, though he practiced no houken, no coin danced across his fingers.

"Do you want them dead?" he asked me, his voice rising.

"Yes," I answered. I didn't even know who "they" were.

"Are they dead, James?" He asked, his rich voice now ringing over the sound of the omnipresent gunfire.

"Yes!"

"Then kill them! KILL THEM ALL!"

I brought up the Thompson in one hand, not even distantly aware of the obscene weight of the heavy machinegun. It was just like my fist had grown into a long black finger. I screamed a wordless cry and my finger shot thunder like the hand of Zeus. I raked the gun across the range, pumping lead. The cardboard target twenty yards away was chopped to pieces. I turned and tore apart the targets on either side of me where a Low Man was popping little small-claibur holes in his target with a handgun. I went on screaming until the hundred-round drum was empty.

Lex made a strange twined-finger gesture with one hand that I could never hope to duplicate with my human hand and he gave a short, triumphant cry.

"It was well done, James. It was very well indeed."

I clapped my hand on Carrie's shoulder and echoed those words before I could stop myself. It was the first time in an hour that she hit the target twenty yards away. She smiled shyly. She was really very pretty when she just smiled. I mumbled something about Rolands lessons in the Books when she talked about her doubts. But even that was a little too close for comfort. Rolands talk of "I kill with my heart" and Lex's lessons about killing being a matter of will were eerily similar. Not for the first time I wondered what Lex knew of Gunslingers. Where did Lex come from? Why had he chosen to serve the Crimson King?

I jerked myself out of reverie then as I did now. I wasn't at a shooting range at the Tet building or outside of New Jersey. Below us right now were nearly twice our number of the King's harriers.

Why hadn't we waited for dark? Presumably then they'd all be asleep over in the dorms. With the thick concrete they wouldn't have been able to hear any shooting from inside and Our ruse with Carrie would've worked as well at night. Any suspicion guards might've had could probably have been deflected by Eden they way she covered it up when they saw Penny.

I knew why, of course. I still crave The Kill. If everything goes according to some perfect plan, there's no challenge. I wanted a challenge. I wanted them to fight back. I wanted a chance to blow some of those harriers to hell. And I wanted to give them a chance to kill me.

I glanced at Penny to see if she knew, to see if she suspected. I'd always tried to hide my self-loathing from her, but I'd come close to letting her see my naked hatred for myself.

Shooting wasn't the only practice we'd done. We'd run up against some powerful psychic creatures and events, and I knew that at least Alistair was pretty scared of something getting into his head. Well, since his head was pretty much only held together by the Rose, I don't blame him. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that being with a new ka-tet kept brining up memories of the old one.

"It creeps me out they way everyone knows what I'm thinking, Lex. I'm going to loose it and start shooting." I pulled the tab on my third beer. Lex drank his out of a coffee mug, his pink tongue darting out to lap up the cheap foamy beer.

"It does?" He asked with genuine curiosity. I supposed that as a taheen, telepathy was as normal as blue eyes.

"Hell yeah, it does." I chugged half my beer in a few long swallows. "…I hear that in the devor toi they have hats… Hats that stop the Breakers from progging the guards."

Lex shook his head and wiped the suds from his whiskers with the back of his paw. "No hat, James. They don't give those out as party favors. But there are better ways. Hats can be lost. Knocked off. If you even lift one enough to scratch your head… There are better ways." He gestured for another can and caught the Bud I tossed his way. I hadn't gotten used to his unnatural grace and speed.

"I can show you if you want."

"What do I have to do?" I asked. I was always ready to learn something from Lex and he seemed to have an endless wealth of things to teach. He even taught me a few things about the stock market.

"You excell, James. Did I ever tell you that?" He told me. I shook my head. The approval of my dinh warmed my cold, dead cheeks. "You do not succeed at everything, but you try. You reach beyond yourself. You reach as far as you can."

I thought of my father, whom hadn't crossed my mind in years. Somehow I didn't think he'd be proud of what I was reaching for. I drowned his face in cheap beer.

After a long pause Lex spoke again. "A telepath can read your mind. But they can only read what is there to be read. When you open the pages of Moby Dick, you cannot read the story of Huckleberry Finn." I hoped this wasn't going to get too literary, I'd paid a kid to write those two book reports for me. "Think very hard about something James. Anything you want."

I shrugged and looked around for something to focus on. For some reason I remembered my mother's perfume. Vanderbuilt. It was expensive, but glorious. My father could seldom afford a bottle, but every year I worked odd jobs and mowed lawns until I could buy her one for mother's day. Heavy glass shapped like a swan. I remembered her smile and that glorious smell as she sprayed some on her wrist for me to smell.

Lex's soft black nose wrinkled, his nostrils dilating. "Vanderbuilt?" he asked. I nodded, but uselessly. His slitted eyes were closed and he could see it in my head anyways. It wasn't so bad when Lex read my thoughts. "And underneath that, you're thinking…" He trailed off, doing me the kindness of not finishing that sentence. "That's good, James. You have to think that down deep. So that underneath the memory of that scent is only more of the same. If someone means to prog you, or is looking for your mind amidst others, give them nothing to find."

I rubbed my temple. Thinking so hard on one thing made my head hurt. I popped another beer.

"There are other tricks. Things to help you keep your mind your own when someone else tries to own it. To make you do things." He turned his large green eyes on me again.

"Alright. Let's do it."

And we'd done it there in a conferrence room. I told them what I'd been told about building walls around my mind. I had to thank Lex for not laughing at me, because back then I had probaly been making the same riddiculous faces as I concentrated as they were.

I let Eden and Penny try to prog me and I'd done my best to keep them out. Eden was the stronger telepath…but Penny got in deeper. I feel like she's almost in my head already. It was hard not to think about her, what she means to me, especially with her right front of me, gently biting her lower lip in exaggerated concentration. I panicked when I felt her slide into my head like a blade, finding the gaps in the mental wall I built simply because against her I built no walls.

I actually physically turned away, as if by hiding my face I could hide my thoughts. My abrupt turn must have startled her, because I felt her leave my head. The contact was only brief, momentary. But had she seen all the way down? Had she seen to the depths of my regret? Every day is a torment to me, every drop of blood is a reminder that I am not human, I'm a creature of the Crimson King, and I live only because a little girl needs me. Every time the Top Hat Cats went after a breaker, I hoped that something would happen. Every time I went out with Penny and the others I hoped that some Low Man would be a better shot than me, would have a greater will to win.

Maybe one of these Low Men down there was better. But I realized that everyone else was in the same hunt as me. That when it came to The Kill, that they could die just as easily as me. If I thought I was a monster then, how would I feel if I survived another shootout, but someone shot Eden? Or Carrie? Carrie who just told me that she'd went out with Ashleigh and hadn't creeped him out. Who'd been so proud to have done such a normal things as gone out on a date.

What if it was Penny?

I'd fucked us. It was too late to cry off and wait for dark. The gate guards were dead, the window pried open by Ashleigh in a way that wouldn't remain undiscovered for long. There was only one way to make sure that no one else paid the price for my death-wish.

I had to win.

So I'll win. So that the others who never did wrong in this life, who deserved more than an inglorious death at the hands of things inhuman, could walk away from here. I'll win.

Those Low Men are already dead.

Ka-tet

I guess it wasn’t until we got back with haystack and this other Eden that I started to suspect it. Lots of little things had been adding up in the back of my mind that I hadn’t acknowledged yet. I asked Alistair, the only one besides me who wasn’t psychic, to try to read my mind. Sure enough he was able to pick up on my intense desire for a beer. I wasn’t trying to broadcast it, but I wonder if he felt my sudden sense of dread.

I wasn’t looking for another ka-tet and I didn’t want one. I had Penny and she was all I wanted, even though I knew I didn’t deserve her. I kept thinking about Lex and what I did to the Top Hat Cats. Ka is a wheel, or so say Roland and Steven King. Was I doomed to betrayal again? Was everything I’ve gone through just so I could end up gunning everyone down?

I thought about going to the Rose. I felt like it could cure me of this feeling, maybe wash away the betrayal. It was after all the voice of it’s alright, the voice of yes you may. But I knew that it would destroy me even as it did. And right then, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Penny was strong, she didn’t need me. She’d get over my death and be better off without a vampire in her life.

I put my sawed-off to my head again, pressed so hard that it made ring-shaped indents in my temple that stayed for hours. I was convinced that I was going to pull the trigger, but I didn’t. I kept seeing Penny in my head. I was still sure that she’d get over whatever childish attachment she had to me, but… I found that I wasn’t ready to let go yet. Couldn’t let go. Roland had his Tower, and I had Penny. Maybe it’d come down to this in the end, killing myself to escape from ka, but I wasn’t up against that wall yet. I’d try. God, I’d try. To make this work, to make a real ka-tet of us and protect them like I knew I should. Maybe I was being a ka-mai, I probably was, but for Penny, I’d try.

Upper management at Tet needed some time to go over what we’d brought back, including talking to Keirnin of the Manni, who I still thought of as Haystack., so we had some downtime. Ashleigh probably should have gone to a hospital, but I’m not sure what they could have done for him. Tet sent a doctor to his house, where he’d bee-lined right after we got back. I would have been pissed at him for not staying to debrief (I’d have fired someone who followed up on a project that sloppily), but he was still shaking from his fall into the todash darkness so I was just surprised he could walk and talk. I’d taken a shot at forging something with him and Alistair already. I’d wait and see how that went the next time we played poker, if there was a next time.

But I owed Carrie something now. I asked Penny to take her and buy a nice dress and one for herself. I took her back to the restaurant we’d gone to before, but this time I didn’t have any agenda apart from apologizing for smacking her. She’d been right after all. This time we didn’t get any stares, at least not the bad kind. We were just a good-looking couple having a nice dinner. I tried to talk to her a little – nothing about what we’d done at Tet, nothing about that part of our lives – but the conversation was stilted. Her visions were the only thing Carrie had. It made me sad, but I didn’t know what to do.

She invited me up to her apartment afterwards so I walked her in. I wasn’t sure what she had in mind: coffee, sex or both. When she didn’t make much of a move either way I just asked her, I’m not shy. Her answer was just as plain; an open invitation to either. Wow, she sure knows how to make a guy feel like a couple of bucks. It was a step up from Alice’s brush-off, but didn’t exactly make me feel wanted either. It was more like if she lied down with a sign on her chest that said “please wipe feet.” I figured if Ashleigh or Alistair were here the invitation would be the same. So I left.

I’d been worried about Penny, too. We’d just been through a lot. She watched Eden fall to her death, then been involved in a serious firefight. Even killed a man (well, a taheen, but it was still her first kill). She’d done it well, fought hard. She was scared and could use some work on hiding that, but she’d done what she had to anyways. When I talked to her about it, though, it was like I was afraid of. They were “bad guys” so it was okay to kill them. Oh, God, how do you explain to a kid what you never really understand as an adult? People aren’t born into little categories like bad guys and good guys. I mean, which one was I? What was Lex? Was I right to kill him? Yes. Yes, but he wasn’t a bad guy. It’s more complicated. I think she understood. She’s a smart kid. I just hope that next time lead flew that I hadn’t crippled her with indecision.

It hurt to talk to her. It reminded me of my betrayal and my fear that it would happen again. I think she already knew, but I told her that I’d do it all over again. I’d kill the Top Hat Cats for her. I’d even kill Carrie and Ashleigh and everyone else. God help me, I would. She said she didn’t get it. Good. I wasn’t going to let it happen again. I’ll try poker and dinner and whatever it takes, but I have got to change things this time.

Found

We hauled ass as soon as the falling guy's dirty feet touched the sidewalk. Low men were pounding down the lobby and we were in trouble. This place, this building was some place of power for Sombra or for the Crimson King. It felt like the Dixie Pig. Inside there'd be at least dozens of can toi and quite possibly doors.

I gripped my thompson tightly and waited. I wanted to catch them all together as they came out the revolving doors, drop as many as I could to thin out pursuit. To my surprise, Ashleigh hung back with me. I never took him for a coward, but he was barely on his feet after his Todash detour. I was damned glad to have him at my shoulder when the glass shattered from the gunfire, then flew back together. He held them there as long as he could, giving the others time to escape before the strain was too much and the glass came crashing down. So we backpedaled, firing as we went.

We got clear of the building without being chased, which was more than I'd hoped for. But something was helping us and I had an idea of who. As we pelted across the street I knew that a blue Ford El Camino was going to come around the corner just a second before he did. The driver was looking down, snubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray and not watching the road. I reached out to hold Ashleigh back, but he had already pulled up short. The driver looked and saw us. He's going to say "Criminy," I thought. Not Christ or Fuck, but criminy. "Criminy!" He yells and hits the breaks. We dart in front of the car. I was reminded of Jake's deja vu when he was supposed to die, but I had no idea why I - and Ashleigh (and I had a feeling the others too) - would be feeling it. But as I said, I thought I had a pretty good idea who it was. Carrie was running not far ahead of us, staggering drunkenly - or like someone wounded. But maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was just concentrating on seeing the next few seconds for all of us...

Alistair was leaning over his map, even as he ran, looking for a way out. We had to go quickly, since even though we'd gotten away from the building, I knew we'd be seeing the low cars canvasing the streets before long.

I held my guns out of the water as best I could as we swam across a park lake to an artificial island with a groundskeepers shed on it. It looked abandoned and old, forlorn. I could feel the wanderlust tug of the highways. I wasn't sure how badly my guns had gotten wet and didn't have time to check so I was glad to be on our way out.

We stopped for a moment to check our wounded, every second spent here making me itch. But it wasn't a good idea to take to the back roads of the highways in hiding with walking wounded. This new Eden looked us all over quickly and I thought of the word triage. Later on I realized that's exactly what she was doing and what's more, that I'd picked the word up from Eden.

She went to the guy that Sayre'd tried to fling from the building. He was the worst off of all of us, even Ashleigh. He looked up at us and smiled. I could see his face relax like he'd not only gotten somewhere safe, but like he'd been expecting rescue. From us. And he knew my name. All of our names probably, though he spoke to me. His name was Guy Parkinson, though I've never met him.

I'm not sure how he found this out, not sure how he fell into the hands of Sayre, but I knew now we had to get back, it was even more important than before. The big bad red dude was setting a trap for the Gunslinger. A door of some kind, big enough to drive one of the low cars through, maybe two abreast. And they were calling up harriers to throw in his path. I'd read of Roland and his ka-tet. I didn't think he'd be taken so completely unawares, but numbers and surprise would tell. It was the duty of the Tet Corporation to keep him safe so he could get to the Tower.

Guy died there on the island. We left him in the shack there on the little hill. There was no time to bury him and no way to take him with us. We took Eden and Carrie's Haystack with us and went into the shed that wasn't a shed. Long before there was a park here with a man-made lake and a man-made island there must've been some kind of road and we walked it.

We tread the darkness carefully, linked by ropes from the start, not taking any chances. But as we traveled we began to hear singing. Thousands of voices. We all paused to listen together, and I knew we had to see what it was. Ashleigh flat-out refused. He said it was the voice of the dark, the voice of something terrible trying to deceive us. Like some todash pilot fish dangling sweet music instead lights. If I hadn't been distracted I'd have wondered how I knew that he was thinking of pilot fish, but I was listening to the song.

I knew it wasn't the vice of the Rose. I've felt that presence and I know that longing and this wasn't it. I knew that this was good (white) but not in the same way. This wouldn't destroy me. The sounds was coming from off the path, so I didn't blame Ashleigh for not wanting to go, even if I did think his head was just still ringing from the todash chimes and he couldn't hear this. Perhaps if he could it'd wash some of that haunted look from his too-pale face.

We argued about it, but I wasn't budging. I don't know why I let myself think for a second that they would trust a vampire. After a few minutes of debate, they even forgot that I was the first one to ask to go and find the voice. But in the end they let me go, tethered by rope. I was the only one who was healthy enough to go and not expendable. When I didn't fall, we set out slowly into the darkness.

And found the light. At first I thought I'd fucked us all. I felt like someone sank a hook in my guts an yanked. We went flying, but the moment of panic passed quickly. There was that crazed sensation of movement, like we were moving way too fast, like we should have been crushed by the g-force or something. But at the same time, I felt safe, protected. Like we were being carried in the hand of a giant, yes, but of a giant that meant us no harm. And we saw things. I wonder if this is what it's like to be Carrie.

We saw the doorway. The place they'd chosen to lay their ambush. Getting an accurate count was impossible, but I got a sense of their number anyways. Delah. I could feel the itching in the backs of my eyes and smell the burned metal tang of the low men. I saw beast-headed taheen. And I could see the blue shrouds of vampires.

But not just mosquitoes like me. There were twisted, corpse-like shapes in a cluster near the back, the dark blue auras deeper and thicker. I thought that these might be vampires as well, but maybe they were like Barlowe. I had to wonder...if I live long enough, if I drink enough blood...will I become like them?

Then we were shown something else. We saw a demolished lot. Not an empty lot, no as much I crave to see the Rose, I'd have shied away from that vision. There was once something here, something that was knocked down. Somewhere under all that mess was something...white. But there was something else there too. Something we couldn't see but could damn well feel. Something old and powerful there. Getting to whatever was hidden under all that rubble wasn't going to be easy.

And then we were put down. We were in New York of '99 again. Nice shortcut.