“Jesus,” I said.
Mrs. Rufino lifted her head. “The joke,” she said, “was that at the end of the week, Timon sent word that Ezequiel had permission to go. Because he knew he wouldn’t, even if I begged. He’d stay to help take care of his father.”
She, the kids, and A’marie all looked at me expectantly. I couldn’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t make me look like an asshole. Then I felt a shiver inside my chest.
It was the same thing that had happened after Gimble beat up Clarence. I wanted to help somebody who was hurt, so my mojo was revving up.
I hadn’t helped the little squirrel man because I hadn’t known how. I still didn’t, really. But Timon’s coaching had given me an idea, and at least I felt fully charged. Last night, all I’d done was call up the Thunderbird. It mostly hadn’t helped me, but it hadn’t been all that difficult, either, and maybe I was starting to build some magic muscle.
I pictured the silver bird again, just to get to a magic-y state of mind. Then I reached inside myself. It was like trying to dredge up a memory that doesn’t want to come. But I was looking for Red.
When I felt him, I imagined him growing bigger and bigger inside me, until he completely filled me up. Until he was wearing my skin like a glove.
It wasn’t like when the giant’s axe chopped me into five pieces. This time, Red didn’t have a whole other mind of his own, and I didn’t black out when he took over. But my emotions changed.
Imagine if you’d been sick in a hospital bed your whole life, and then, all of a sudden, you were as healthy as an Olympic athlete. Imagine running out of that sad white building into the most beautiful spring day anybody ever saw.
It was kind of like that. I wanted to grab A’marie and jump her bones. I wanted to bust open the dusty old cans on the shelves and gobble the fruit inside. I wanted to run, jump, and slap out rhythms on the wall. To do anything, as long as it was a chance to feel and move.
But Red wasn’t driving. I was, the complete me, and I’d called up Mr. Ka to do a job. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, and told me to calm down. It blunted the edge of that wild exhilaration. I still felt good, but not crazy good.
“Are you all right?” asked A’marie. “You’ve got this weird grin.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I think that maybe I can help Rufino. I’m going to try.”
I knelt down beside him. He thrashed harder, trying to tear his hands free so he could hit me and to hitch himself around into position to kick me. He looked like a fish flopping in the bottom of a boat.
“Can you guys hold him still?” I asked the others.
They did, although it wasn’t easy, even with A’marie helping. I put both hands on his chest, like I was going to do CPR, and tried to stream some of Red’s energy down my arms and through the point of contact. It flowed in surges, in time with the pumping of my heart.
For maybe three seconds. Then the world blinked, and I was someplace else.
I spun around expecting to see stone columns, and the Pharaoh’s giants coming at me. I didn’t. I was standing under the night sky beside the black expanse of the Hillsborough River. I knew it was the Hillsborough because I could see the silver minarets of the University of Tampa lit up in the distance.
A scream cut through the dark.
I ran in that direction. I figured I was headed into trouble, but not a trap. My gut told me that it wasn’t the Pharaoh or any of my other opponents who’d dumped me here. It was my own magic. If I really wanted to help Rufino, this was where I needed to be.
I heard more screams. Then one of the bridges that cross the river appeared in the darkness ahead, with Tiki torches burning underneath the near end. Since there were a dozen finheads gathered in the pool of yellow light, I stopped running and started sneaking. I was twice as big as any of them, but big only gets you so far.
Afghanistan had taught me how to sneak, and I made it close enough to see what the finheads were doing. I felt like puking when I did.
They had one of their own staked spread-eagled on the ground. It’s tricky recognizing inhuman faces until you get familiar with the particular race, but I was pretty sure the prisoner was Rufino. And that it was his own wife and kids slicing him up with knives while the onlookers laughed and cheered them on. Ezequiel’s Bucs jersey was a giveaway.
I realized this was the nightmare that had driven Rufino nuts. Somehow, he was still stuck inside it, and my job was to get him out.
By blasting it to Hell? Maybe. I wished my rifle into my hands.
It didn’t work. At the moment, I was Red, and weapons weren’t his thing. I considered switching to one of the other souls, but I was afraid that would drop me out of the dream.
Screw it. I was juiced with Red’s energy, and I had surprise on my side. The finheads were little, and imaginary to boot. How tough could it be?
I found out when I rushed them.
At first it went okay. They were all so intent on the torture that I was able to get right on top of them before anybody noticed me. I grabbed the closest, who was dressed in baggy shorts and a wifebeater, heaved him up, and slammed him into the graffiti spray-painted on one of the concrete bridge supports. Bone cracked, and when I dropped him, he didn’t get up.
A different guy ran at my flank. I pivoted and snapped a kick into his stomach. He flew backward.
But by then everybody else was spreading out to surround me. The torchlight gleamed on their knives. They all had one, and most of them held their elbows cocked and the blades in line with their forearms, just like my DI had taught me. They knew what they were doing.
I realized I wasn’t just juiced with Red’s superhealth. I’d let it make me overconfident. But it was too late for second thoughts.
As I backpedaled toward one of the bridge supports-to keep anybody from getting behind me-I spotted one of the Tiki torches out of the corner of my eye. I reached and jerked it out of the ground. It was just bamboo, and bent and bounced in my hands. But it was better than no weapon at all.
A finhead came at me. I shoved the flaming end of the torch at his face, and he stopped short. At the same moment, I glimpsed or heard or felt motion right beside me. I jumped away from it, and a knife thrust fell short by an inch.
Ezequiel snarled and scrambled after me. As his arm pulled back for another stab, I booted him in the face. That was one nice thing about fighting short creatures. It was actually practical to go all Bruce Lee on them and kick them in the head.
Ezequiel reeled backward. I turned to find the next threat. Unfortunately, it found me first.
Something shoved the back of my right knee, or at least that was how it felt. No pain, not yet, just pressure. As I pitched forward, I realized that one nice thing about being a short creature fighting a human being was that you’re in a good position to hamstring him.
Other finheads swarmed on me. Each stab or slash was a paralyzing shock. But then energy roared up from the center of me and burned the weakness away.
I had maybe half a second before the next thrust or cut would come. I screamed and flailed with the torch. It was clumsy to use such a long weapon at close quarters, but it either knocked the finheads away or made them scramble back. Maybe because they hadn’t thought I had any fight left in me.
I hadn’t thought so, either, until Red healed my wounds. But I was pretty sure he couldn’t keep doing it over and over again. I needed to put an end to this.
I’d at least changed the dream. Was that worth anything? As I scrambled back onto my feet, I risked a glance in Rufino’s direction. He was watching the fight, but he was still a dissected, bloody mess, and still staked to the sandy ground. There was no reason to think that the other finheads wouldn’t go right back to torturing him after they finished with me.