Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

A green nova bloomed in the sky, and its thousands of shards showed Geiger a path just ahead of him that sloped gently down through the trees. He used a deep, purging breath as a trigger to get himself moving. Suddenly he thought of Corley and knew the dream was alive within him. But this time it was different: he still didn’t know his destination, but for once he was certain he could reach it. He felt a powerful surge, a purity of purpose that carried him forward along the path.

Ezra sat folded up on the dock, his arms wrapping his knees. He prayed Geiger would come; he prayed Geiger would be too late.

Hall was three feet away, on his knees, untying the second of two ropes that secured the inverted boat to two metal cleats. Ezra watched him dig at the petrified knot with his nails, and eyed the gun and gym bag lying next to Hall on the weathered planks. He wondered how heavy the weapon was-would it take two hands to hold up?

“What’re you gonna do with me-after?” Ezra asked. “I mean, when you’re ready to go?”

Hall ignored him. When he finally pulled the knot loose, he stood up and turned the boat over onto its hull. He put the oars that had been stowed under it in their locks, tied its six-foot tether line to one of the cleats, and pushed the boat into the river. Caught by the current, the rowboat swung downstream with its bow pointing toward them.

The thought of going down the river with Hall was too much for Ezra to bear. Should he try to run away? If he did, he’d lose the bag and the discs forever…

Reaching down, Hall picked up the gun and stuck it in his belt. Then he grabbed the bag. For a moment he looked at Ezra silently, finally meeting his gaze.

“You scared?”

Ezra nodded.

“Good,” said Hall. “Stay scared.”

Geiger came through the trees. The riverbank was directly ahead of him, and from it a dock stretched into the dark water. He could make out two figures at the end of the dock, one standing, the other sitting.

Geiger started onto the dock, the old planks rattling beneath his feet. The standing figure turned and raised his arm, pointing something at him.

“Geiger,” Hall called out. “Stop.”

“Let Ezra go.”

“Get off the dock, Geiger.”

Ezra got up on one knee. “Do what he says, Geiger. I’ll be okay!”

“Geiger, just get off the fucking dock and we’re good. If not-I take him down the river with me.”

Geiger kept coming. The dream had always had a beginning and a middle, but it had never had a real end. Now he had finally reached the last part. Completion waited.

“All right then,” Hall said. “Fuck it.” He put down the bag, reached for the tether line, and pulled the boat up against the dock’s end.

“Get in the boat, Ezra,” Hall ordered, waving toward the rowboat with his gun.

“Don’t do it, Ezra!” Geiger was halfway along the dock now, and he could see the pale oval of Ezra’s face as he turned to look at him.

“Get in the goddamn boat,” Hall shouted. “Now!”

Ezra jumped down into the boat, and Geiger heard the oars rattling in their locks. “I want the boy, Hall-and the discs.”

“Can’t do it, Geiger,” Hall said, letting go of the boat and allowing it to ride on its tether again. He picked up the bag. “They wanted all of you dead, all the loose ends tied up nice and tidy. But now I’m a loose end, and so when I disappear I’m going to let them know that if they come after me, Veritas Arcana gets the discs back. Now the discs are my insurance policy. That’s how this ends, Geiger. Now back off!”

Geiger, now only twenty feet from the end of the dock, could see Hall’s eyes flashing in the night. “Not possible, Hall.”

Hall brought his gun up level with his shoulder. “I don’t get you, Geiger-I really don’t. Why are you doing this?”

“Let’s just say that it’s what works best for me.”

“Geiger, I will put you down.”

“No, you won’t. Not with the police so close-they’ll hear the shot.”

Above them, the fireworks’ big finale erupted. A new burst exploded every two or three seconds, filling the night with brilliant stars and deafening boom s and bang s and crackle s.

“No, they won’t,” said Hall. He fired.

The impact knocked Geiger sideways and flung him down onto his back. He lay on the dock staring up at the umbrella of bursting lights. In the midst of the careening, raucous universe, he was drifting away on a warm, soft bed of silence. He saw nothing, felt nothing. He knew only that he was leaving.

He heard a voice calling his name. It was Ezra; the boy was very insistent about something, his tone pleading and urgent. Geiger couldn’t make out the words, but then there were no words. There was only a howl.

The water was alive with light, and the city of children was so dazzling now that Lily imagined it could illuminate the world. But when she heard a long, anguished scream, she rose to her feet. She knew what it was: the children were crying. They were scared, and they were calling to her from their home beneath the water.

Hall stared at Geiger’s body, fifteen feet away. He had aimed for the upper right quadrant, the best way to achieve maximum impact without causing lethal damage. But he couldn’t tell if his aim had been true. Geiger wasn’t moving-he could be bleeding out or dead. Hall had wanted to stop him, not kill him, but in the end it hardly mattered, as long as he could finally be on his way.

He pulled the boat back in. Ezra sat on the rowing bench, his head down on his knees. As the boat came to the dock, the boy looked up at him. Something about his face surprised Hall. It was his eyes: they were dry, and instead of tears there was a bright hatred that shone like cold starlight. Again Hall wavered about letting the boy go. He didn’t want to harm him, but if he left him behind, Ezra would tell the police about the boat and point them in his direction. Then the cops would stake out the shore and maybe put a chopper over the river.

“Have a seat in the back, Ezra. Time to take a ride on the river.”

Ezra stared at him for a moment but then moved to the stern. Hall stepped down into the rowboat, put the bag at his feet, and reached up to untie the tether line from the cleat. He glanced up to dock level and saw Geiger stumble to his feet, the right half of him shining and wet.

“Jesus Christ…” muttered Hall.

He pulled the rope free of the cleat, and the boat started drifting away. Hall stood in the boat, shaking his head and watching Geiger shuffle slowly forward, his shoulders slanted crookedly, like tipped scales. Geiger came to an unsteady, stuttering halt at the end of the dock.

Hall made a megaphone of his hands. “It’s over, Geiger! Just let it go!”

At first Geiger wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Perhaps it was the hallucination of a blood-starved mind, or maybe he was now fully in the grip of the dream’s embrace.

Two hands rose from the river like pale aquatic creatures and grabbed the rowboat’s gunwale. A head broke the water’s surface; Geiger saw the mad eyes of a savior, the open mouth of a child seeking its own kind, a body pushed by fear and exhilaration beyond its limits-and then Lily tried to lever herself up out of the river.

With her added weight, the boat abruptly listed forty degrees, causing Hall to rear backward and send the vessel into a full capsize. He, Ezra, and Lily all disappeared beneath the upturned boat without a sound.

Geiger knew he would finish the dream now, awake and in the world. There would be no coming apart.

He heard a voice behind him, a hoarse and desperate shout:

“Geiger!”

But he knew the call came from outside the dream, so he dove off the dock’s edge, slamming down on the water, and began swimming for the boat. The coolness of the river was both a stimulant and an anesthetic, pricking the mind and numbing the flesh.