Death Weeps Part 29

He shrugged and a voice from behind us startled the group, Clyde was the only one that didn't jump at the sound of it.

Gramps said, "A follow-through set of gents, those?"

I turned to look at him, grinning. "Yeah, Gramps, they got c.r.a.p done."

He put his hands on his hips, legs spread wide. "Well good, nice to know someone does." He smiled back at me and winked.

His eyes shifted from me to Garcia... then finally landed on Parker. "So we're somehow related?"

Parker nodded and Gramps palmed his chin. "You're not going to take my grandson and do the guinea pig pin test on him?"

Wasn't that voodoo? Whatever, it didn't sound like a fun time.

Parker smiled and shook his head.

Gramps looked at Parker, staring for a long time. Finally, he grunted and nodded his head. "Mr. Weller thinks they don't have anymore of their special juice to neutralize their crazy c.o.c.ktail, my friend," he spread his arms wide, the long sleeved shirt he wore, covering one corner of the mark on his arm.

The rest blazed at me from where I stood. Livid and red.

Lethal.

Gramps and I had a swollen pause together, I was putting together what his end was if I didn't get this antidote. He was understanding the pressure I was under.

Something occurred to me. "Wait, how'd they get to everyone," my eyes flicked to Gramps again, "to Gramps."

Gramps suddenly grinned, the corner of his eyes crinkling in unfettered joy.

Oh s.h.i.t.

"Well, they came, and some pieces were left behind."

He winked and I swayed where I stood, feeling my gorge rise in a tight, hot lump.

Everyone started talking at once as I sucked in great wheezing gulps of air that smelled like garbage and a little like death.

I was down with death, it straightened my spine and allowed me to think again, killing the fuzziness that had encroached at the edges of my brain.

Past the visual of Graysheet body parts that littered Gramps' yard as they'd tried to traverse his pulse-activated minefield.

The dumba.s.ses.

But some had gotten through. I told him that, my eyes searching his.

He nodded. "Yes, they got through. Some," he paused, "but not all," he finished significantly.

Parker looked at Gramps then finally gave me his full attention. "They used a Manipulative."

Randi covered her mouth, her arm, like the rest, sporting the new mark. "I've heard of them. They're making a counter-serum to neutralize the ability."

"Pandora's box," Archer said.

"Huh?" Jonesy asked.

"It's that old story about a bunch of people that wanted to find treasure so bad that they opened a forbidden box and got a nasty surprise," Alex said.

"So, our paranormal ability context keeps expanding and now abilities are cropping up that n.o.body knows what to do with?" John said rhetorically.

Parker nodded but said, "Oh... they know what to do with it. With enough money, they can do anything."

Sophie's lip trembled. "They had a Manipulative in my house? They made me sit there while they stabbed me with their c.r.a.p?" she nearly wailed and Jonesy went over and stood next to her.

Girl Meltdown Imminent.

"a.s.swipes," Tiff repeated for good measure and Clyde frowned at her. She looked at my life-like zombie and shrugged.

Unflappable.

"They did. It is extremely effective. However, there are some that are immune to a Manipulative."

"Who?" I asked.

"A Null," Parker said and we all looked at John.

He slapped his forehead. "I know when they did it."

Parker nodded. "They gave you a suppressant, and then, while you lay snoozing," he mimed depressing a syringe.

"Gawd that's lame," Jonesy said, rubbing the raised welt on his arm.

"The lamest," Tiff agreed.

"How do we nail these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds?" Alex said in a growl.

Parker shook his head. "You mean, how do you save yourselves?"

And Jade, my mind whispered.

I instantly wondered where she was, what she was thinking under the thrall of the slow-moving and insidious chemical that was even now, unraveling her psyche.

"Wait!" I said, panicked. Parker turned and I asked, "Does this work on everyone the same? How much time do we have?"

Parker shook his head. "No, it's an individual time line. Each person's biological response depends on a lot of factors."

"Like what?" John asked, his mental wheels spinning.

Parker shrugged. "Mental stability, upbringing... emotional fort.i.tude."

"So... people that have a stronger... disposition," I hesitated over the next part, "will, what? Succ.u.mb more slowly?"

"That's not a perfect explanation but it's d.a.m.n close," Parker said.

"The fragile will spiral quickly?" John clarified with a question.

Parker nodded. "People that have been abused, suffered emotionally... they will be very vulnerable to the progression."

Gramps spun his face to mine. "I know about Jade, Caleb."

My girl. She was the most fragile of us all.

And she was with Brett. By my hand.

Gramps strode to me and clamped strong hands on my shoulders, I looked down at him, almost to my adult height. "No son, don't go bonkers now. She needs you."

Parker interrupted, "Jade won't know that though. She'll feel like she naturally feels whatever way she feels. The ideas she has, thought processes, they will evolve naturally as if they were her own. She will respond, think and react irrationally. It will all be based on small insecurities or worries. Not logic. That's been wiped."

I clenched my teeth together. "I need to get to her."

Tiff said, "What, you gonna kidnap her champ?" she asked, not unkindly.

I closed my eyes. What could I do?

"I can get her here," Sophie said hesitantly. We all looked at her.

"No, Soph. It's not safe," Jonesy said. He was thinking like a guy. A protector. He'd already put the loose pieces of Howie Frazier together with Brett Mason like dual cherries on top of the misery cake.

Nice.

Parker cleared his throat and Logan Tracker literally came out of the woodwork, sliding from between two piles of trash, full of decaying lumber from a demolition.

"Holy effing smokes!" Jonesy yelled. "Could this get any G.o.dd.a.m.ned worse?"

My thoughts exactly.

Sophie and Logan, aka Buddy, looked at each other for a several heartbeats of silence then Sophie's gaze shifted to Parker.

"Forgive me, but I took some liberties." Parker looked at me.

Well h.e.l.l yeah, he did. My friends were Freaking Out.

"I antic.i.p.ated some of what may happen with Caleb, and I certainly had some foreknowledge of what may happen with Jade." He shrugged and looked at Sophie. "He will be your guard. You can convince her to come here. She'll need to go with you when you return."

I wanted her with me, that was a no-brainer. But why couldn't I get the s.h.i.t, come back to our world and give her a dose?

Parker gave me steady eyes. "She has the least amount of time, Caleb."

I swallowed past my misery. "How much?"

He looked at all my friends. "They may have a few weeks, some," his eyes touched on the Weller kids, Jonesy, "somewhat more."

"And Jade?" I asked in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

"Days, Caleb."

"Why me?" I asked in a low voice and Gramps frowned as Clyde moved forward.

"Do you remember what I said to you upon our first acquaintance?" Clyde's eyes searched mine and I nodded dully.

"To whom much is given, much is expected," I responded in a reactive fugue.

"You were given much, Caleb," he said.

And Parker added to the torture, "what you experience now is critical to who you'll be in the future, Caleb. You must be tested with these experiences to become the man you'll be."

"Maybe I don't want to be him," I said in a voice that brooked no argument, drenched with my impotent rage.

"You already are, Caleb. You already are."

CHAPTER 17.

Jade Jade moved her hand to her temple again, ma.s.saging the tender pain that pulsed there. She'd felt sick for two days and her head swam with disturbing images of suffering and pain.

She would try to think in a linear way and a press of sickening memories and images would wash away her thought processes like water running down gla.s.s.

She felt muddled. For some reason, Howie was taking her to school every day and she wasn't fighting it. It seemed so much more reasonable to go along with it.

But Jade was frightened. This fog inside her head made her hands shake. They trembled now as she pulsed the lock Caleb had installed on her door that led to the dungeon where she lived. In the bowels of the Frazier home.

The last two nights Howie had waited until his parents were drinking at the local tavern and his soft rapping on the door had been replaced by his foot kicking it.

She remembered the first night with perfect recall.

"Jade," Howie used his big knuckles to hit the door, their hollow banging causing the metal of the door to echo. "Let me in, let's talk," he'd said in conspirator's tones.

Her hand had hovered over the lock, her mind in a fog of swirling confusion. She knew there was some kind of warning here, she just couldn't think of it. All she could think of was her dead father's words about how bad of a girl she was.

How s.l.u.tty.

How dirty.

She licked her dry lips, her fingers caressing over the locking pulse mechanism, her thumb hovering dangerously close to release.