“Enough words,” Nobura whispered softly, “they only provide a distraction. I need to concentrate.” He folded his legs and put his hands on his knees. Then he closed his eyes, and took one long, deep breath.
The room was full of confused looks. “What’s he doing?” Duncan asked.
“He will decide in seven breaths,” Talon explained, rising from the ground.
Betsy looked disappointed. She turned back to the organ and began playing again. It was a slower song, more ominous sounding.
She struck the lamp with her foot and the cat resumed its fidgety dancing.
Nobura took another long deep breath.
“This is madness!” Arsalan said. “What are we still doing here?” he said to Venter and Chester. He stood up and motioned emphatically toward the door.
Venter and Chester stood up slowly, guns in hand.
“Just wait. It won’t be long now,” Duncan said.
“Wait until he takes seven breaths?” Arsalan said. “This was suspect when we first came in, but now it’s outright insanity. And this fucking… singing and… cat.” he put one finger to his temple and spun it in a circle. “No, this is going nowhere fast.”
Nobura took another long, deep breath.
Arsalan started moving toward the door. Venter followed, shrugging at Duncan in some sort of apology. With some reluctance, Chester also moved to follow.
When Arsalan opened the door, two men were standing there, dressed in black. They were Cecile’s men. Arsalan tried to bolt through them but they managed to grab his arms and hold his position.
“Let us through!” Chester yelled, pointing his weapon at them, and then swiveling around to point it into the room.
Nobura took another long, deep breath.
Duncan ran past Chester and Venter. He grabbed Arsalan from the back, pulling him on top of his own body, with the two Quebecois men falling on top of Arsalan, sandwiching him. When they unscrambled their limbs Arsalan was pinned by the Quebecois men.
The door remained open. Lightning flashed. Thunder followed.
Nobura took another long, deep breath.
When Duncan recovered from the tussle, he saw that Venter had his pistol pointed at him. He slowly drew his own gun and pointed it back at Venter. In the room around them, Chester had his weapon trained on Mehta, and Owen had his weapon trained on Venter. Talon had joined Nobura in meditation. The blonde merc had grabbed Cecile and held her in a headlock, with her own weapon pointing toward her temple. “Insurance, you know,” she said, smiling a gap-toothed smile.
Arsalan continued to wrestle against the two Quebecois men that held him. “Let us go, damn it!” Then he yelled at Chester and Venter. “Just fucking shoot them!”
Ralph returned with two more pizzas, adding them to the untouched food and drink on the table. “Bon appetite!” he said with delight. Ralph then clasped his hands together and looked around the room. “How is everything?” he asked.
No one answered.
“Great!” Ralph said, and he made his way back to the kitchen.
Nobura took another long, deep breath.
Duncan noticed that Mehta was slowly inching toward the barrel of Chester’s weapon. He still held the table leg in his hand. Otherwise the room was frozen in time. They were wax statues in a museum of violence, foreshadowing any number of grisly outcomes.
All of a sudden, Betsy accidentally knocked the swinging lantern with her elbow in a fleeting moment of musical passion. The spots of light broke free from their casual pendulum and spiraled throughout the room. Potsie went into a frenzy, running and jumping to claw at a spot of light that had landed on Venter’s chest. Venter was so surprised he pulled the trigger of his gun. The shot hit the wall on the opposite side of the room, but not before first nicking Duncan’s ear.
“For fuck’s sake,” Duncan said, holding his bleeding ear. Somehow he managed to hold firm, to not pull the trigger.
The gunshot sent the cat scattering back into the kitchen. Guns were pushed forward even more pointedly toward their intended targets.
“This is so… fucking… bent.” Chester said, shaking his head, darkness in his eyes. He seemed to be entering a state of slow hyperventilation.
Heads swiveled. Lightning struck again, this time closer to the tavern. Thunder rumbled through the room while taut fingers hovered on triggers. Betsy snorted with laughter and then continued singing.
Nobura took another long, deep breath, and opened his eyes.
FIRE AND GASOLINE
The outskirts south of Seeville weren’t frequented by many. Old World developments remained in various states of disrepair, some burned out, some collapsing. Those that travelled through were mostly Spoke vagabonds and sometimes even bandits. No one paid them any attention. It was here that Mehta hiked in the darkness, trying to find the rendezvous Duncan had described.
Mehta reached the top of a hill. A light shone out about a hundred yards away, illuminating a building. The area matched Duncan’s description, insofar as one could make it out in the darkness.
Mehta took out his scope to examine the building in more detail. It was an Old World single family dwelling, like many of the buildings he had lived in growing up, before they had burned Asheville to the ground. The second level was mostly intact, but the first floor was no more than two parallel walls. There was a small campfire next to it, where the foundations of an old garage used to be. There was also a tent set up in the foreground.
There was movement as well. Someone was drawing wood from a pile under the sheltered part of the building.
Duncan had said it was owned by an Adherent follower but deserted long ago, and no one else was supposed to be here. Perhaps this was a squatter? Or maybe one of Meeker’s rangers?
Mehta walked the rest of the way cautiously, limping at times over the undulating topography. When he was closer, he could tell the figure was a woman. She paraded around, oblivious to the fact that she was being watched. When she stopped to sit by the fire, he simply walked up behind her and lifted her up, one hand on her mouth.
He let her squirm. She tried to elbow him, but her arms were tightly pinned to her body. “I’m going to give you a minute to calm down,” Mehta said, “then I want you to tell me who you are and who you work for. If you call out, or run, I’ll snap your neck.”
He gave her a moment to consider her options then took his hand away from her mouth.
“I don’t understand how you can be so big and still be so quiet,” Flora said.
Mehta dropped her to the ground. “Figures it would be you,” he said.
She rubbed her arms and got up off the damp ground, returning to a slab of rotted lumber she’d been sitting on.