Rob Thurman - All Seeing Eye

“You’re being shitty, aren’t you?” In all honesty, the pills did make it difficult to tell.

“Yes, I am.” He patted me again.

“Was it the thing I said about Meleah’s ass?”

“You got it in one.”

“Fine. See if I use my social skills to help the romantically challenged again.” I yawned, feeling the room swing up and down, then back and forth. It was a nice sensation, the world as my personal hammock. I liked it. “You know, Meleah, you should take sympathy on the man. He hasn’t been laid in eleven months, two weeks, four days, and…” I checked my watch, willing the blurry numbers to coalesce. I stopped when a grip fastened around my ankle and tightened. “Hey.” I gave Hector a poisonous glare. “If I wasn’t doped up to my eyeballs, that might hurt.”

“Trust me, there’s no ‘might’ to it.” But he let go. “Time to get serious, Jackson. I know you haven’t felt this good since you were Mr. December on the Hot Psychics of Atlanta calendar, but I need you to tell me if you’re up for this tomorrow. It’s a long drive to the caverns, and I can’t have you high as a kite if something goes wrong-such as the recording kicking in before we’ve zeroed in on Charlie.”

That was a mental picture that sent the happy packing as fast as a Republican senator who’d knocked up his mistress. Charlie trying to fight through the ether was, as far as I could tell, seconds away from being simultaneous with the cycle of violence spinning into play mode. I thought about it, which wasn’t easy, as my thoughts were distracted more than once by the narcotic haze. Eventually, I locked it down and ran a hand over my face. “I won’t be able to wrestle any of your soldier goons like I did at the quarry. I won’t even be able to take Fujiwara or any of the other geeks, if it comes to that. But I will be able to tell you if-when-Charlie is coming. That’ll give you and your Charlie-busting machine two or three seconds to go to work.”

Then it hit me what he’d said-the location. It was astounding how fast that drugged-up contented feeling vanished.

“The caverns? The cannibal caverns? God, why there? Thackery said Charlie was drawn to you as his brother and me as a psychic link much more than the level of violence imprinted on the ether. Couldn’t you have picked someplace less dangerous? Someplace where we won’t be trying to eat each other?”

And where I didn’t hear little girls crying for their mommy before they were hung up on hooks, lambs to be gutted and drained.

Tender honey chile. Like fresh churned butter, melt on your tongue so tender…

“Ah, Jesus.” I closed my eyes, but it wasn’t enough. I clapped my hand across them, squeezing from temple to temple, trying not to see the curve of metal, the crimson waterfall, the trailing brown waves of hair. “Go away, Hector. Go the fuck away, and don’t come back until it’s time to go tomorrow.”

He didn’t. He explained instead. I wasn’t interested. “We decided it would be best if all elements were optimal. You, me, and the highest level of violence-to be on the safe side. To make certain this time is the last time.”

Certain? Nothing was ever certain. PhDs, my ass. They were all idiots. Every single one of them. And I was nothing more than a piece of their Charlie-busting machine. Something to be used, and the hell with the consequences to me in the process. I was an idiot, too, to have ever thought differently.

“Go away,” I repeated flatly.

This time, he did, his footsteps followed by the lighter ones of Meleah, and I was left alone with thoughts. Many thoughts.

None of which was mine.

“I brought you a change of clothes. You can shower here in the infirmary instead of going back to our room. It’s probably safer, limiting your exposure to other personnel as much as we can.” Hector put a meticulously folded pair of jeans and black shirt on the foot of my bed.

I ignored him and took another bite of the pancakes Eden had brought me. Homemade blackberry ones with real maple syrup, not those hockey pucks from the cafeteria. As far as I had determined, she was the single saving grace to this particularly heinous pit of hell. She’d come in the middle of the night with more pain medicine, this time an injection. When I’d asked her when she slept, she’d winked and replied, “When I don’t have special patients. And you’ve been through enough here, Jackson Lee, that you’re labeled permanently special on my list.” She’d patted my arm with her hand, safely covered with a latex glove. “Now, roll over to your side. This goes in your hip.”

“Dr. Guerrera only gave me pills before. Why the needle?” But I’d already been rolling. Pill or injection, the previous pain medicine had worn off, and my rib had been more than ready for more.

“This has something extra to help you sleep. Don’t think I hadn’t noticed you weren’t doing any of that.” She’d gone for stern, but the sympathy had washed that away.

I’d returned immediately to lying on my back. “I don’t need that. I don’t need to sleep.” I hadn’t wanted to sleep; that had been closer to the truth. The whispers, the screams, the sounds of chewing, the wicked curve of a hook-they were all more clear when I was asleep.

The sternness had returned, along with a finger shaking the likes of which I hadn’t seen since my granny Rosemary. “I hear you have a big day tomorrow. Riding out to one of those creepy sites.” She’d made a face. “Doing more of your psychic readings. You need your sleep.”

“I’m not doing any more readings. I’m going to help with Charlie tomorrow and then be home, my home, before midnight. No more readings and not another night spent in this hellhole. Dr. Allgood is on his own from now on.” Like I should’ve realized that I’d been all along.

“I don’t blame you one tiny bit. These people have all the compassion of a toad, and I’ve been thinking long and hard about finding another job with people who care, not people who care who they can use.” She’d tilted her head. “Well, you’ll get plenty of sleep tomorrow night, then, and sleep through the next day if you have any sense. You’re positive you don’t want the shot?”

More than. She’d shaken her head. “You’re a stubborn one, but I’ll miss you, Mr. All Seeing Eye.” She’d given me an impish smile and apparently had gone home, slept three hours, and then was up making me the best good-bye pancakes I’d ever eaten.

And which I continued to eat while Allgood went on to annoy me further. I didn’t appreciate reminders of my first episode of gullibility since I was six or seven. “I had three guards on the infirmary door last night. I know you didn’t want to hear it at the time, but I didn’t want you to think I’d leave you without backup until we get you out of here.”

I didn’t say anything as I wiped syrup off my hands and put my gloves back on.

“You didn’t think that, did you?” he demanded.

I took the clothes and stood. “No. I thought about how men were stringy, women were better, but little girls tasted best of all. I thought about how my hooks needed sharpening as they were beginning to blunt on bone. I thought about how once it seemed the winter would never end. But that was when I was hungry. Now my stomach was full, and I hoped the snow never stopped falling.” I headed for the shower room.

“We’re not going there,” Hector said, his voice harsh and guttural. There was a tinge of green to his face from my recital of cannibal Renfrow’s thoughts. Hundreds of years old, but to some people, people like me, they were as clear and sharp as the day his blackened, corrupted brain had spat them out. “I’ve already told Thackery and the others. They didn’t like it, but they didn’t see you there, and none of us can see what you saw. Going back there might be the most logical choice, but it’s not the most humane one. If I can keep my soul intact through all this, I will.” He exhaled. “We’re going to a low-risk site. One at the bottom of the list. It’s a simple family dispute over a fifty-fifty split of a farm in a will. One brother whacked the other over the head with an axe handle. It’s still a murder, has to be, but it’s nothing close to what had happened at the caverns.”