Firestarter

Jules was looking around carefully.

“You can go now,” Charlie said.

“Hey!” Jules said, raising his voice and paying no attention to Charlie. Rainbird knew Jules. A book man. Follow each order to the letter and nobody could put you in hack. Keep your ass covered at all times. “Hey, groom! Somebody! I got the kid here!”

“You can go now,” Charlie said again, and once more Jules ignored her.

“Come now,” he said, clamping a hand over Charlie’s wrist. “We got to find somebody.”

A bit regretfully, Rainbird prepared to shoot Don Jules. It could be worse; at least Jules would die by the book, and with his ass covered. “I said you could go now,” Charlie said, and suddenly Jules let go of her wrist. He didn’t just let go; he pulled his hand away, the way you do when you’ve grabbed hold of something hot.

Rainbird watched this interesting development closely.

Jules had turned and was looking at Charlie. He was rubbing his wrist, but Rainbird was unable to see if there was a mark there or not.

“You get out of here,” Charlie said softly.

Jules reached under his coat and Rainbird once more prepared to shoot him. He wouldn’t do it until the gun was clear of Jules’s jacket and his intention to march her back to the house was obvious.

But the gun was only partway out when he dropped it to the barnboard floor with a cry. He took two steps backward, away from the girl, his eyes wide.

Charlie made a half turn away, as if Jules no longer interested her. There was a faucet protruding from the wall halfway up the long side of the L, and beneath it was a bucket half full of water.

Steam began to rise lazily from the bucket.

Rainbird didn’t think Jules noticed that; his eyes were riveted on Charlie.

“Get out of here, you bastard,” she said, “or I’ll burn you up. I’ll fry you.”

John Rainbird raised Charlie a silent cheer.

Jules stood looking at her, indecisive. At this moment, with his head down and slightly cocked, his eyes moving restlessly from side to side, he looked ratlike and dangerous. Rainbird was ready to back her play if she had to make one, but he hoped Jules would be sensible. The power had a way of getting out of control.

“Get out right now,” Charlie said. “Go back where you came from. I’ll be watching to see that you do. Move! Get out of here!”

The shrill anger in her voice decided him. “Take is easy,” he said. “Okay. But you got nowhere to go, girl. You got nothing but a hard way to go.”

As he spoke he was easing past her, then backing toward the door.

“I’ll be watching,” Charlie said grimly. “Don’t you even turn around, you… you turd.”

Jules went out. He said something else, but Rainbird didn’t catch it.

“Just go!” Charlie cried.

She stood in the double doorway, back to Rainbird, in a shower of drowsy afternoon sunlight, a small silhouette. Again his love for her came over him. This was the place of their appointment, then.

“Charlie,” he called down softly.

She stiffened and took a single step backward. She didn’t turn around, but he could feel the sudden recognition and fury flooding through her, although it was visible only in the slow way that her shoulders came up.

“Charlie,” he called again. “Hey, Charlie.”

“You!” she whispered. He barely caught it. Somewhere below him, a horse nickered softly. ”

It’s me,” he agreed. “Charlie, it’s been me all along.”

Now she did turn and swept the long side of the stable with her eyes. Rainbird saw her do this, but she didn’t see him; he was behind a stack of bales, well out of sight in the shadowy second loft.

“Where are you?” she rasped. “You tricked me! It was you! My daddy says it was you that time at Granther’s!” Her hand had gone unconsciously to her throat, where he had laid in the dart. “Where are you?”

Ah, Charlie, wouldn’t you like to know?

A horse whi

“Where are you?” she screamed again, and Rainbird felt the temperature suddenly begin to rise. Directly below him, one of the horses-Necromancer, perhapswhi

9

The door buzzer made its curt, rasping cry, and Cap Hollister stepped into Andy’s apartment below the north plantation house. He was not the man he had been a year before. That man had been elderly but tough and hale and shrewd; that man had possessed a face you might expect to see crouching over the edge of a duck blind in November and holding a shotgun with easy authority. This man walked in a kind of distracted shamble. His hair, a strong iron gray a year ago, was now nearly white and babyfine. His mouth twitched infirmly. But the greatest change was in his eyes, which seemed puzzled and somehow childlike; this expression would occasionally be broken by a shooting sideways glance that was suspicious and fearful and almost cringing. His hands hung loosely by his sides and the fingers twitched aimlessly. The echo had become a ricochet that was now bouncing around his brain with crazy, whistling, deadly velocity.

Andy McGee stood to meet him. He was dressed exactly as he had been on that day when he and Charlie had fled up Third Avenue in New York with the Shop sedan trailing behind them. The cord jacket was torn at the seam of the left shoulder now, and the brown twill pants were faded and seatshiny,

The wait had been good for him. He felt that he had been able to make his peace with all of this. Not understanding, no. He felt he would never have that, even if he and Charlie somehow managed to beat the fantastic odds and get away and go on living. He could find no fatal flaw in his own character on which to blame this royal balls-up, no sin of the father that needed to be expiated upon his daughter. It wasn’t wrong to need two hundred dollars or to participate in a controlled experiment, anymore than it was wrong to want to be free. If I could get clear, he thought, I’d tell them this: teach your children, teach your babies, teach them well, they say they know what they are doing, and sometimes they do, but mostly they lie.

But it was what it was, n'est-ce pas? One way or another they would at least have a run for their money. But that brought him no feeling of forgiveness or understanding for the people who had done this. In finding peace with himself, he had banked the fires of his hate for the faceless bureaucretins who had done this in the name of national security or whatever it was. Only they weren’t faceless now: one of them stood before him, smiling and twitching and vacant. Andy felt no sympathy for Cap’s state at all.

You brought it on yourself, chum.

“Hello, Andy,” Cap said. “All ready?” “Yes,” Andy said. “Carry one of my bags, would you?” Cap’s vacuity was broken by one of those falsely shrewd glances. “Have you checked them?” he barked. “Checked them for snakes?” Andy pushed-not hard. He wanted to save as much as he could for an emergency.

“Pick it up,” he said, gesturing at one of the two suitcases.

Cap walked over and picked it up. Andy grabbed the other one.

“Where’s your car?”

“It’s right outside,” Cap said. “It’s been brought around.”

“Will anyone check on us?” What he meant was Will anyone try to stop us?

“Why would they?” Cap asked, honestly surprised. “I’m in charge.”

Andy had to be satisfied with that. “We’re going out,” he said, “and we’re going to put these bags in the trunk-”

“Trunk’s okay,” Cap broke in. “I checked it this morning.”

“-and then we’re going to drive around to the stable and get my daughter. Any questions?”