Besides, from what I’d learned so far, I needed a personal connection before I could zap someone. I’d wanted to find the invisible thief so badly, the Universe had to throw Tim at me or I’d probably have exploded. All my other visualizations had been of a similar category—highly emotional and directly related to me and mine. Imagining impersonal warehouses around the world full of melting bullets was simply beyond my capacity. Achieving world peace would probably require blowing up the planet.
Maybe the Why me? question was answered by Because I’m rational. But for how long?
Sirens were screaming down the street by the time we reached Julius’s kitchen. The outside world tended to ignore the Zone, but an explosion had probably tripped a few seismic waves. I found Tim in the kitchen with a sub bun in hand, loading on every piece of processed meat and cheese he could locate in the refrigerator. I took tomatoes out of a hanging basket and sliced them onto his chemically enhanced protein bomb. He shot me a nasty glare, but he needed veggies. I added some basil leaves and lettuce. Andre kept his father’s kitchen well stocked. A pity Julius had never learned to cook.
Tim slathered on mayonnaise. I added mustard and bean sprouts and cut the bun in half. He took his half and peeled off all the veggies.
“You’ll get scurvy and rickets if you don’t eat your fruits and vegetables,” I warned. “Your hair will fall out. Your bones will crumble.”
“Bunny Bread builds strong bones and muscles,” he countered, but he slapped one tomato back on before biting off a chunk bigger than he was.
“I told Andre only to buy his father brown bread. You’re eating whole grains. Want to go for a bike ride?” I nibbled my sandwich. It needed onions, but I didn’t have time to peel them.
“Can I drive?” He knew I owned a Harley and didn’t mean a Schwinn.
“Doubtful, unless you’ve had lessons.” I headed down the back stairs, still nibbling.
He didn’t laugh at my bad joke or the grammar correction. “How will I learn if I don’t have a bike?” he complained through a mouthful of bread.
“You need some driver’s ed first. Maybe there’s a motorcycle school.” Of course, given that he’d just driven off in one of the vans, he already knew the basics. “Where’d you leave the van?” I asked.
“One of the medics took it away after I delivered the patients,” he said resentfully.
All the patients were in the tunnel now, not far from Andre’s mother. I got it. The goons would be back and this time, they could blow up the street. Stopping a company with helicopters and troops wouldn’t be easy. Andre was probably right to go for the Gorgon’s head.
The question was, would Andre behave rationally or just blow Gloria off the map?
Andre in a rage could terrorize small countries. After being warned all day not to let him kill anyone, I apparently wasn’t the only one fearing for his sanity. I ripped off a bite of sandwich and did my best to act as if I wasn’t panicking.
Avoiding any lingering results of the explosion—like fire trucks parked in the street or cops looking for witnesses—Tim and I took Andre’s back door and the alley over to Pearl’s fenced-in backyard where I kept my Harley. Max’s Harley. U.S. senators don’t tool around on bikes. His loss.
I added calling Max to my to-do list. If Dane started showing up anywhere besides his gas appliances, I wanted to know about it. If I had to keep fighting the souls I sent to hell, I’d rather become a hermit.
“Where are we going?” Tim finally had the smarts to ask.
“You hid from the goons in the warehouse, didn’t you?” I asked, to confirm my suspicion. “You’re learning to control your little trick?”
“Sort of,” he said warily, finishing off his sandwich before donning the helmet I handed him. “I went out like a light when that guy tackled me, though.”
“Disappearing when attacked is an instinctive defense. Disappearing at will and staying invisible is a little more difficult.” I strapped on my helmet and tucked Milo and his canvas bag into the bike’s leather pouch, where he’d be safer.
This conversation would have had me checking into a mental ward six months ago. Since Max’s death and my emergence as some kind of freak of nature, anything seemed feasible. And the kid needed someone to teach him that he was special, not weird. The Zone had its positive side. I needed to reinforce it.
“I walked past Leibowitz last week without him seeing me,” Tim bragged.
“You’re scared of Leibowitz. Disappearing when scared is still pretty much a defensive action. Remember the time we visited Senator Vanderventer in the hospital and you pulled his hair? Were you scared then?”
“You bet your shit I was. You do scary things.” Horny male adolescent climbed on the bike and grabbed the bar instead of the hot babe.
I do not lack self-esteem. He’d just proved his sexual orientation.
“And you still haven’t said where we’re going.”
“Just for a Sunday drive in the country,” I said cheerfully, roaring the bike into action. I didn’t want him getting scared and winking out on me before we got there.
I didn’t turn the helmet radio on, so Tim couldn’t question me further. I’d taken Sarah with me the last time I’d planned on terrorizing the Vanderventer homestead. That hadn’t worked so well. My latest theory was that Zone inhabitants were survivors because they had an accelerated flight instinct—except the Zone had perverted that instinct into invisibility and shape-shifting instead of running. Sarah had shifted into a chimp the instant Gloria’s guards had turned on us. Tim would go invisible.
And I’d be left standing all alone. Again.
Maybe I’d stop and call Max and tell him to give Dane’s granny a visit today. But if Andre was heading in Gloria’s direction, I feared I’d really have more trouble than I could take on. Having Dane/Max and Andre under the same roof might amuse Granny Gloria, up to the point that Andre aimed his toy guns at her grandson. No love lost between those two.
It was a lovely September day. It would have been nice to linger. A few trees along the mansion-studded roads of Towson were just starting to show color. Maple tree crowns flared with the occasional bright orange and red in the sunlight. Even as I roared down the center lane, I could feel Tim swiveling to take it all in. This was a world of luxury and beauty, just half an hour’s drive from our blighted rusted-metal-and-blacktop environment.
I geared past the court building and wondered guiltily what the pink ash might have done to the inhabitants. I’d not seen any reactions beyond those of the comatose patients yet. Maybe it took a large quantity of ash and a compromised immune system. The baby docs had said their patients hadn’t been healthy, which might have been why the homeless camp had taken such a hit. Bums didn’t get good medical care. Neither did poor people with no medical insurance, which equated to just about everyone in the Zone, but odds were better that young people were stronger.
I hoped Julius or Paddy had gone down to help the gun-toting med student and his patients, because I didn’t have time for them. Apparently I was more interested in preventing Andre from getting his head blown off by Gloria’s goons than in protecting comatose patients. I made a lousy goddess, domestic or otherwise.
Sorry, guys. I hit the pedal heading out of town.
Since Andre had obviously known Gloria Vanderventer since childhood, he wouldn’t have had the same difficulty I did in locating the mansion hidden down one of a thousand and one narrow lanes in this gazillion-dollar district. I’d only been here once. I remembered her mansion as being on top of a hill overlooking all the luxury homes that had usurped the countryside over the last century. Gloria had the last remaining estate-size acreage in the neighborhood.