The Liminal War Read online

  Table of Contents

  ACT I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  ACT II

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  ACT III

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Entropy of Bones

  Chapter One

  Small Beer Press

  Praise for Ayize Jama Everett’s books:

  “This spellbinding novel shares a setting—the present day, layered with magic—with Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People and The Liminal War, but it stands well on its own. “Normal” is not part of protagonist Chabi’s world: she was raised on a houseboat in Sausalito, Calif., and has been mute from birth, but she discovers she can push her mental voice into people’s minds. Faced with public school and its hazards, she asks a local martial arts master, Narayana, to teach her to fight. Narayana makes Chabi a weapon: a superhuman bar fighter and brawler. She’s able to shatter skeletons with her understanding of the powers of entropy. Chabi uses her deadly skills first to protect a likable trio of marijuana farmers, then as a security guard for an impossibly rich hotel magnate who’s as dangerous in his own way as Narayana. Rooted in Chabi’s voice, the story is spare, fierce, and rich, and readers will care just as much about the delicate, damaged relationship between Chabi and her mother as the threat of world destruction.” [Publishers Weekly, starred review]

  “A story about a scrappy group of people with superpowers who careen through a criminal underground, the space-time continuum, and frequently outrageous battles to rescue a young woman who’s gone missing.” [Kirkus Reviews]

  “The action sequences are smartly orchestrated, but it is Taggert’s quest to retrieve his own soul that gives The Liminal People its oomph. Jama-Everett has done a stellar job of creating a setup that promises even greater rewards in future volumes.” [San Francisco Chronicle]

  “For all the grit, character and poetry on display here, Everett’s own super power appears to be plotting and set-pieces. Readers will find a quick immersion in the opening scene, and then some secret world-building. Once the plot kicks in, readers had best be prepared to finish the book in one sitting, while experiencing better special effects than you will find in any movie. Indeed, Everett’s prose is cinematic in the best sense; when he puts us in a scene of action, his descriptions take on a hyper-clarity that is better than telepathy. The plot arc is cunning and enjoyably surprising, and the revelations have the shock of the new but the old-school satisfaction of well-woven espionage plots. The Liminal People is seriously well-written, but also seriously fun to read. It’s a secret world that deserves the elegant exposition of this engaging novel—and a sequel, sooner rather than later.” [Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column]

  “The story’s setup . . . takes next to no time to relate in Jama-Everett’s brisk prose. With flat-voiced, sharp-edged humor reminiscent of the razors his fellow thugs wear around their necks, Taggert claims to read bodies ‘the way pretentious East Coast Americans read The New Yorker . . . I’ve got skills,’ he adds. ‘What I don’t have is patience.’” [Nisi Shawl, The Seattle Times]

  “Every once in awhile, a first novel catches you by surprise. Sometimes it’s the style and sometimes it’s the pure originality or unique mixing of influences. In the case of Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People, the pleasure comes from all of the above.” [Jeff VanderMeer, Omnivoracious]

  “Ayize Jama-Everett has brewed a voodoo cauldron of Sci-Fi, Romance, Crime, and Superhero Comic, to provide us with a true gestalt of understanding, offering us both a new definition of “family” and a world view on the universality of human conduct. The Liminal People—as obviously intended—will draw different reactions from different readers. But none of them will stop reading until its cataclysmic ending.” [Andrew Vachss]

  “Ayize’s imagination will mess with yours, and the world won’t ever look quite the same again.” [Nalo Hopkinson]

  “The Liminal People has the pleasures of classic sf while being astonishingly contemporary and savvy.” [Maureen F. McHugh]

  “Fast and sleek and powerful—a skillful and unique mix of supernatural adventure and lived-in, persuasive, often moving noir.” [Felix Gilman]

  “An astounding first novel. . . . The Liminal People is a noir juggernaut with startlingly genuine themes of salvation, emancipation, and family. As of now, this book is my favorite of the year and I desperately hope that Jama-Everett chooses to pen a sequel.” [Elitist Book Reviews]

  “Fast-paced and frequently violent, Jama-Everett’s engaging and fulfilling debut offers a compelling take on the classic science-fiction convention of the powerful misfit; incorporates an interesting, multiethnic cast of characters; and proves successful as both an action-packed thriller and a careful look at the moral dilemmas of those whose powers transcend humanity.” [Publishers Weekly]

  “Razor. Plush. Fast.” [Tan, City Lights Books, San Francisco, CA]

  “Compact but creative, and filled with good ideas and elements of classic sci-fi, noir, and superhero stories.” [Peter, Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA]

  “From within ‘The Golden Ghetto’ Jama-Everett has created a book that resists classification, joining the Afrosurreal Pantheon of writers exploring this new-found freedom. He calls the gifted ones Liminal People, people ‘Always on the borderland, the threshold, the in-between.’ He has Taggert explain. ‘I learned what I know by walking the liminal lands.’ I trust that many people will relate, or will want to.” [D. Scot Miller, City Lights Blog]

  The Liminal War

  AYIZE

  JAMA-EVERETT

  Small Beer Press

  Easthampton, MA

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or used fictitiously.

  The Liminal War copyright © 2015 by Ayize Jama-Everett. All rights reserved.

  liminaleob.tumblr.com

  Small Beer Press

  150 Pleasant Street, #306

  Easthampton, MA 01027

  smallbeerpress.com

  weightlessbooks.com

  [email protected]

  Distributed to the trade by Consortium.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jama-Everett, Ayize, 1974-

  The liminal war / Ayize Jama-Everett.

  pages cm

  Summary: “Taggert wants to look after his family so when his adopted daughter disappears he only has one option: find her”-- Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-61873-101-2 (paperback) -- ISBN 978-1-61873-102-9 (ebook)

  1. Healers--Fiction. 2. Extrasensory perception--Fiction. 3. Missing persons--Fiction. 4. Psychological fiction. 5. Suspense fiction. I. Title.

  PS3610.A426L57 2015

  813’.6--dc23

  2015010349

  First edition 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

  Text set in Minion 12 pt.

  The paper edition of this book was printed on 30% PCW recycled paper by the Maple Press in York, PA.

  Cover illustration by John Jennings (jijennin70.tumblr.com).

  For Nia.

  ACT I

  London, fourteen minutes from now

  Chapter One

  “They say you can cure my cancer.”

  “Who is ‘they’?” It’s a genuine question. Lots of people talk about me.

  “People that
I trust.”

  She’s old, white, manicured, and comes from a titled family. I shouldn’t be in the same room with her, even with this false East Indian face and body on. She’s nothing but attention. But the location is anonymous enough—a two-room lightly furnished office paid for in cash, in the heart of Metro London—that I risk her continued, dignified begging.

  “That does me no good. Give me a name or I walk.”

  “I will not betray the people that have gotten me this far with you.” A little backbone. I like it. Not like I’ll let her know.

  “And how do I know those who mean to do me harm haven’t sent you?”

  “I get the sense you don’t suffer your enemies to live for very long.”

  “So long as that’s clear.”

  I read bodies the way master musicians read music. The closer I get, the more I can see and the more I can influence, change, heal . . . or hurt. I spent years hurting—others, and myself—for a shadow of a pestilence named Nordeen. Head of a team of murder-oriented smugglers called the Razor Neck crew, Nordeen was part father, part slavemaster, all boss. Three years ago I paid for my freedom and family with the life of the only woman I’d ever truly loved: Yasmine. Since then I’ve been keeping a low profile with our daughter, Tamara, and another liminal teenager in need named Prentis.

  It was Samantha’s idea to get into healing. No fixed location, no flat fee, no credit cards. Just put a whisper into the no-hope cancer streams, in terminal AIDS wards, among the undiagnosed critical patients, and see who comes.

  “But why?” I asked Samantha after she brought it up for the fifth time.

  “You have years of practice as a dealer of destruction. Why not aim toward health?” Sam has that way of making me feel like an idiot with simple statements.

  The Dame with a backbone has a pernicious brain cancer. Last night I read her from a distance. Rather, I read the chromosomal signature of the cancer. I haven’t seen it before, but I’ve met its cousins and uncles in my other patients. The woman is not nearly as interesting as her disease.

  “Breathe easy and try not to move,” I tell the Dame, and go deep. Starving out the tendrils drifting into her spine and lungs is easy. I run an experimental serotonin/dopamine blend through her as I block all neural pain pathways. She relaxes instantly. All that’s left is the golf-ball-sized toxic cluster of spastic nerve spindles and fibrous tissue in her cerebellum. I deaden its noxious abilities instantly; reducing it will take more time and focus so that the surrounding tissue doesn’t overcompensate or remain regressed as a result of the pressure the tumor has put on it. I could beat the tumor back, get the Dame’s body to send a sustained electric pulse into the heart of that dead tumor star. But I want to comprehend the beast, figure out why it grew there as opposed to in her hippocampus, or liver for that matter. Sam was right. This has turned into fun for me.

  But the Dame starts panicking. Not an indigenous panic either. Someone else, another person like me, a Liminal, is pushing the Dame’s fight or flight buttons like she was a stuck elevator. I know because the same thing is happening to me.

  A heroin-sized high is enough to knock the Dame unconscious. I turn my ability inward and reduce my doubling hippocampus as it reacts to the fear. I’m calm just in time to hear cars crash right in front of the Tate Modern. At the window I confirm what I’ve feared. Half of London is in a full-blown panic. Whatever did this—it’s not targeted.

  Liminals—folks like myself, born with a variety of abilities and skills—tend to be . . . difficult. With no template of appropriate behavior, a Liminal with the ability to enter dreams can be a fairy godmother or a psychic rapist. My brother, with hard telekinetic abilities, chose the latter route. But this is different. There is no maliciousness in this psychic hijack. In fact, this is no attack: this is terror shared.

  I hit Holland Street, heading away from the Thames in default healing mode. If I can’t reset the panic centers in any of the growing crowds in under two seconds, I just knock them out. I’ve seen something like this before: 2007, Kuala Lumpur, Mont Kiara. I want to handle this the way I handled that: track the Liminal based off of the victims’ symptoms. The closest to the Liminal will be the most severely affected. If I were still with Nordeen, I’d find the Liminal and either me or one of the Razor Neck crew—his pack of murder oriented smugglers—would deal the death. But there’s something familiar about this Liminal.

  “Prentis,” I call out. Usually an animal of some sort—a dog or a mouse—will donate its attention to me if she can hear through them. Prentis is a liminal animal totem; a conduit for animals, but the link works both ways. She knows every move every animal in London makes. But as I dodge a Mini Cooper hopping up the curb, all I get is a flock of pigeons. I follow the progressively more severe fear symptoms over to Trafalgar Square before I reach out with my mind to Tamara.

  “Kid, you getting this?” I can’t call Tamara my daughter to her face, and given that she’s one of the strongest telepaths I’ve ever met, I’ve got to be careful not to think it too much either. When her mom Yasmine, realized she was pregnant, she kicked me out without letting me know about our girl. Tamara grew up calling a progressive politician in the Reform Labor Party daddy. When the car Tamara’s parents and I were in blew up, she blamed me for their deaths and threw me out a plate-glass window. For a while I thought I deserved it.

  Then it hits me. This type of panic has Tamara written all over it. She’s usually a sarcastic, semi-streetwise, crafty git. But when she gets truly scared, all that bravado and control disappears. For whatever reason, she’s infected every man, woman, and child near her with a mind-crushing panic. The streets are flooded with people crying, breaking down, and hiding. Traffic is worse than usual, with every other driver paranoid about turning the wheel. This ends soon or a lot of people die.

  “Tamara, can you feel me? You’ve got to calm down.” I think hard. It’s harder for her to not sense my thoughts than to include them. What little I can feel from her feels like she’s subsumed. Whatever this is, it’s not intentional. Not that it’ll matter if she drives everyone nuts.

  I kill all lactic acid production in my body, super myelinate my leg muscles, and triple my lung efficiency as I start running. It’s a more public display of my skills than I like—including dropping my North Indian face and skeletal structure—but I don’t have a lot of time. Nordeen has a vicious dislike for public displays of power. In another life he’d have sent me to handle an outbreak like this: I’d rather not meet my replacement right now.

  The closer I get to Tamara’s radiating panic, the more twisted metal and screams take over the streets. I want to walk Sam’s path and heal everyone around me, but I’d be exhausted and useless by the time I got to my girl. My old path would leave a trail of dead bodies behind me. Instead, I compromise; healing those with heart conditions and knocking out the rest with prodigious opioid flushes to the brain. But as I discharge my power I feel one area of calm. As London Town loses its collective shit, tranquility and ease radiate from Eel Pie Island, some ten-plus miles away from me. It’s a steady and progressive calm, chilling people out in a far more gentle way than I could. If I didn’t have to get to Tamara, I’d investigate. But my daughter is losing it. And what’s worse, I know she’s at the last place she should be.

  When a Liminal named Alia—a consummate illusionist—killed Tamara’s parents, Tamara got smart and hid in an abandoned tube station that Prentis used to call home. We handled Alia and her ilk, and the girls gave up their “pit of sadness,” as I called it. But when I have to heal ten seizing pensioners at the entrance to that very tube station, I know that’s where Tam is. I hit the tracks and start running toward it, knowing she’s not alone.

  Walled behind an impressive stack of cement blocks, the station usually goes unmolested. I enter to the sounds of combat, those huge bricks being hurled and smashed into dust. Tamara is as impressive as ever in her open trench coat, open-finger gloves, Gore-Tex T-shirt, and baggy jeans. Her target
is a diminutive, super-dark Indian man with no shoes or shirt. Every sixty-pound block Tam throws at him with her telekinesis, the Indian either dodges or destroys with one blow. Another Liminal.

  I reach out to give him the Dame’s cancer, but where I should feel a four limbs and a head there is only dense void in the shape of a human body. I’m terrified. This thing was not born; it was made out of cold and absence.

  I push past my fear, cut off any receptive senses my healing usually offers, and infect his . . . its . . . “bones” with a rampant marrow infection. That stops his jackrabbit punching moving sessions. Briefly.

  “Tam, you okay?” I shout, trying to get closer to her, rounding the semi-dazed Indian like he’s a wounded animal.

  “She’s gone, Tag!” she shouts back, using her mouth and mind.

  “Dial it back! You’re too loud.” And like that, London can calm down again. It’s an afterthought for her. “Who’s gone?”

  “Prentis! We were supposed to meet two hours ago, but she’s gone!”