The Liminal People Read online

  “You take the girl and I get what in return?” Alia asks.

  “The thanks of a power that can break you whenever he so desires.” Now she’s a blonde, Caucasian, still gorgeous but totally different than the last two images she put up.

  “That’s strange.” She laughs, almost trying to circle me. “Because my understanding was that Nordeen hardly ever left his little hiding spot anymore. I hear he’s afraid of London. I hear his power is waning, and if it weren’t for his emissaries he’d have no power at all.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying let’s sit, have a drink, discuss things.” I look to my right, and once again there’s something I wasn’t expecting. On the sidewalk, fifteen feet in front of me, in one of the more quiet sections of the Samurai Bender, is a small table with two chairs, sake, and a host waiting to seat us. I’m praying Tamara doesn’t take her shot as I pour white milk on sheets. No doubt this Alia has some mind-reading skills of her own. I sit in my chair and notice when her chair rocks a little as she sits. Good. There’s a body in it. Now the real question is, whose body?

  “I think I know who you are,” she starts after pouring a cup of sake for herself, drinking, then offering it to me. “You’re the old man’s healer, no? I haven’t met a lot of people like us. Seven, maybe eight. But a disproportionate number of them know about you. You are the cautionary tale for people like us, did you know that?”

  “And this is your sales pitch?” I say, genuinely annoyed.

  “As you implied earlier, what do I have to sell? Nordeen takes what he wants, just as the norms do as they please with no understanding that their betters walk amongst them every day.”

  “So why am I drinking sake with you?”

  “Because you and I both know it doesn’t have to be like this. We are the rightful heirs of this planet. But we are kept in the shadows by manipulative little old men like Nordeen.”

  “Watch your mouth, woman. You’ve got no idea of his power.”

  “Neither do you.” She stops me cold. “Neither does anyone else who has had dealings with him. And there are others like him. Old people like us, who use others to get what they need. I’ve got no problem with that. Why do the heavy lifting when you can get someone else to do it for you? But you’ve got to be able to prove to the new blood, like myself, that you can still get your hands dirty if necessary.”

  “And you chose to draw the line in the sand with this girl?” I sneeze. The illusionist doesn’t catch it.

  “Perhaps. You see, I think Nordeen and I are just about equally matched right now. He has you razor-necks, and a few other powers like yourself. But I’ve got resources as well. Now, if I were to get Tamara on my side, our battle would no doubt flame the world from here to whatever little hidey-hole in Morocco your man has. But if I were to have you on my side as well, I don’t know if Nordeen would risk it.”

  For the past five seconds I haven’t been paying attention, but I’ve been trying to act like I have. It’s her. I can feel a body, a circulatory system, respiration, the explosive brain, all of it. And it jumps when she says Nordeen. She knows who it is. The sneeze was the cue. Tamara’s a witness, somewhere. I don’t know where she is. But she’s got to be seeing this. She needs to move now. There’s a shift in Alia. She knows I haven’t been paying attention. She’s putting it together. Where the fuck are you, Tamara?

  “Why does a healer sneeze?” It almost feels like an earnest question.

  I hear Tamara’s voice say “Get down” a second before four darts fly from directly behind my head directly into Alia’s brain. At least, where it should be. The darts fly through the head without any effect. She’s another illusion. But I know she’s in the chair.

  “Good effort.” Alia’s way too congratulatory. She’s got that Nordeen smile. I stand. “Uh-uh,” she chastises. “My turn.”

  The world is black. The world is white. The Bender party is gone. I am gone. Fuck. Alia has me.

  I’m being thrown out my window. I’m a kid again. It’s the tree. I’m thrown into the tree through a wall. Fucking Mac. But it’s different. This is when I healed myself for the first time. Mac saw me do it. He treated me like a real little brother. For a little bit, he loved me. It’s the beginning of the “good days,” before I healed my mom, before I learned the difference between good and bad. This is supposed to be a good memory. But it’s something different. My brother’s teeth are huge, made for devouring. And I can’t feel his body.

  “You tried to kill me.” He’s bigger than life, lording over me, his huge teeth aimed at my face. Fuck! It’s this girl. This Alia, I know it is. There’s no other reality, no other sensory input. Its just Mac coming for me. It’s not real. Doesn’t matter. I’m running. I’m running. I’ve failed and I’m running. . . .

  I’m in a car. No! Not his car! Yasmine and her husband. No, it’s not Yasmine. It’s my mother. She’s not a vegetable. She’s kissing Fish’n’Chips. They’re kissing. In love. Please stop this, you stupid bitch.

  Her power is sloppy. I am feeling this all, seeing it, experiencing it, but it’s not a coordinated experience. This is the flickering reality of an ADD-addled sociopathic illusionist. No! Explosion. It’s a blood-rain parade. I’ve got her arm in my hands . . . Whose arm? Yasmine or my mother? They re-form. I can feel the severed nerve endings looking for their frayed partners. Charred skins sloughing off their blackened pieces to form layers of red and white tissue. Wrapping torn and burned muscle tight. It’s forming a body. It’s a disgusting amalgam of flesh and bone that has no distinct parts, no head, or chest, or eyes. This is what I felt the first time I hurt someone with my power. And it forms a mouth, and it speaks in my mother’s voice.

  “Don’t ever touch me again, you freak.”

  No! I use my power to break it apart. I can’t run. I have no legs.

  My body. Remember the body before she throws another warped memory at—

  It’s George Washington University. Yasmine’s boyfriend. The first one. He’s not breathing. I’m doing CPR and using my powers.

  “Don’t touch him, you freak!” Yasmine, screaming at me. Not Yasmine. Tamara. Both. I can’t tell. “You just want to kill him like you killed my parents! You are evil! All you bring is death! Nothing good comes from your healing! Die!” No! It’s a lie, but that doesn’t stop it from breaking me inside. These thoughts—mine or Alia’s?—they skim too close to reality.

  “None of it is real.” Tamara. Her voice. In my head. This is all in my head. Everything goes black. I know it’s in my head. But I can’t get out. Alia’s images, they’re all so—

  Bright light. The savannah. Africa. Nordeen’s dreamtime. Great. Now a painful illusion of a fevered, shared sex dream. I’m nauseous. That means something. I can’t remember. But I can’t be this disorganized. Not with Nordeen in front of me. Only it’s not Nordeen. It’s Mac. He’s the lion-man and Nordeen is the older version of himself. It’s an insane fight. Nordeen is using the words of power, whispering down the lion. But Mac is fighting back, taking swipes that barely miss Nordeen. They fight all day, though the sun doesn’t move. The fight sounds change. This isn’t real . . . this isn’t real. I never realized what a pointless statement that is. An explosion happens somewhere . . . In a mind, a power is being used. This means something. It means change. Fuck, another . . .

  Samantha yells at me “You raped me! You’re no better than Rajesh!” I know it’s not real. She was kind to me. Solace, a place in the storm. Maybe more. This is not an illusion. It’s a lie. They’re all lies. Work with it. White milk on a sheet. Tuna fish grow gills to protect space from the moon. Come on! I need a good mental hiccup for this girl. Her brain is exploding again. . . .

  They’re not fighting anymore. Nordeen rides my lion brother’s back. They’re joined. Heading toward me. Panic. I unleash my powers on them. Nothing happens. I’m running.

  “You raped me!”

  My brother is a vegetable. This is the one time I visited him in the
hospital. It smells of urine and screams silence. He can only make grunting sounds and point with his left hand. He has no power. But when he sees me, his whole body shakes. His bed shakes. But that’s all he can do, a short-circuiting of his powers because my fist shoved skull fragments into his brain. I never tried to heal him. There is nothing to make up here. This is all me. How could I even try to be any more than the murderer of my brother?

  “Fight back.” Tamara. She arrives in the rubble of her own explosion. I feel her fading close by me. Somewhere she’s in trouble. Have to figure this out soon.

  Getting it. This girl is tap-dancing on my fears, my anxiety, my rage. But none of it is real. So what is it . . . ?

  “You would betray me?” Nordeen. He’s got me by the throat, dangling over the roof of his house. Fou-Fou and Suleiman wait below with spears and chainsaws. Not real. I know it’s not real. But the fear. Face the fear.

  “Fuck you. You’re not real!”

  “You sure about that?” The change is quick. The Dragon Lady. She has me by the throat, hanging me over Soho. No one is noticing. “I can do this all night, little man. You’ve got no defense. And just so you know, I’ve decided you’re not really worth the effort of keeping. Neither is Tamara. So as I’m killing you, and I’m killing her at the same time.”

  NO! I kick for the Dragon Lady and find there’s nothing there, including a hand to keep me up. And so I fall and land on a spear. It hurts. I look down. A spear is sticking out of my side. I taste the blood. No, I don’t. I reach down and my tongue reacts like there’s blood. There’s no blood.

  “Help me, Taggert!” Tamara. Close by. Fully panicked. Almost there, kid. I’m not wounded. I’m not hurt. Not physically. Mentally. She attacks my mind, which is correlated with my brain. My brain is part of my body. I can control my brain.

  My lion brother and Nordeen attack again, in unison. Forget the physical danger. What’s the emotion? Fear. Old fear. That’s my hippocampus. I feel for my own brain, where the bitch has no actual control, and feel it overactive. Chill out. No more old fear.

  For a second I can see clearly. Tamara’s writhing on the floor, engulfed in flames. Alia sits where we were drinking the sake, smiling. I run towards teh Dragon Lady—

  “You raped me!” Hard flash. Samantha again. She’s in the car with Mac. They’re kissing. In love. Fuck. How many times do I have to live through this same—

  Explosion. I’m blown out of the car.

  “You raped me.” In the car again. This isn’t working. This does not traumatize me anymore. All power. No skill. I check my brain again. Amygdala’s overworked. Makes sense. My brain’s panic button. That was the last time I truly panicked. No more. I’m done with this shit.

  The real world returns. I switch my vision from normal to body vision. It helps. Alia doesn’t notice me running toward her smug ass. She’s too busy torturing Tamara with God only knows what visions. I’m going to start with kicking her in the face. She’s sitting in a chair, and I’m going to stomp her face in. I’m going to raise my foot to a level where I’m almost off balance, just to kick her face in. I’m raising my foot but somehow I’m not off balance. But Alia’s in the chair and even though I’m this close she doesn’t notice. But all I want to do is kick her face in. . . .

  Stop!

  The illusionist is powerful and subtle. She wants me broken. So she set the illusion up perfectly. Had me thinking I was about to take her out. Instead, I was about to stomp Tamara’s pretty little head into so much paste. It’s only the thing inside of me that recognizes Tamara almost instinctively that stopped me. It almost worked. Alia almost made me kill Tamara. Yasmine’s girl. My—

  I hate this Alia bitch. I throw the worst menstrual cramps womankind has ever experienced at Alia and use the time it buys me to try and heal Tamara. I reduce her amygdala and hippocampus as well, but she’s like me—still reeling from what she saw. I increase the blood flow to her prefrontal cortex, giving her the gift of reason and long-term planning. Her skin is blistering, just like Rajesh said it would. Psychosomatic illusioning. I tell her body to calm down. To let the burns go. I use my body as a reference point for things like temperature, breathing, and the rest. Her body adapts quicker than I thought possible. But she’s still confused, and that’s dangerous—too easy to kill me by accident.

  “Feel my hand. Listen to my voice, feel my power working through you. Tamara. It’s me. It’s Taggert. I’m real. All the other stuff was Alia. She got the drop on us. But we’re both out of it now. You hear me, girl? It’s me. It’s Taggert. You tried to push me out of my hotel room. We worked out this plan. It’s me. Taggert. Get up off the ground, honey. We’ve got a fight to finish.”

  “Daddy?”

  “No, it’s Taggert.”

  She looks at me with full recognition and cognizance of what she’s saying. “Daddy.” I know she’s right.

  The crowd is confused. The music hasn’t stopped, people are still dancing, the flashing lights are still going—but for reasons they can’t express, the mood has gotten suddenly colder. Tamara shaking . . . everything going to shit might also have something to do with it.

  “I am impressed,” Alia says, finally standing in the face of nauseating pain. Tamara and I stand across the street, holding hands, sweaty and sure. This bitch is dead. She just doesn’t know it yet. “No one’s ever broken one of my illusions before.”

  “Shouldn’t try and keep two people like us down at once,” I say. I think to Tamara Blow out all the video screens and cameras. She does, with the exactitude of someone well accustomed to using their powers.

  “Last chance for you to join up with me.” There. I heard it. A little bit of fear in her voice.

  “Go to hell, you murderous cunt!” Tamara barks but doesn’t move. We’re in telepathic communication now. Fully. No need to hide it. We’re both the stronger for it. I’ll heal the strain the use of all this power puts on her fourteen-year-old body. She cedes the direction of her powers to me.

  “Just remember, I tried to give you a way out.” Alia closes her eyes. Tamara braces for a direct attack on us, but I know how this bitch thinks now. “They’re demons. Attack the demons.” She’s not talking to us. She’s talking to everyone else here.

  We’re in a crowd of at least a thousand, and they all want us dead. Before anyone can move, now that I have a lock on Alia I cause muscle death in both of her legs. I hear her cry of pain and know she’s not going anywhere. I was hoping it would chill out the crowd, too. Nope, they’re just angry Londoners with faces painted like samurai, some with real swords, ready for a fight.

  “Got an idea,” Tamara says, gripping my hand hard.

  “I’m not trying to kill all these people.”

  “Me neither. But I think its nap time.”

  “All these people at once?”

  “Remember the pebble, grasshopper,” she says, with all the humor she can muster after just dodging a sword stroke. We join minds again and send out a wave of need for sleep—the physical depletion comes from me, with a psychic nudge from Tamara. We can only do about fifty at a time, so we do the closest fifty. Their slumbering bodies block any dangerous people behind them. We’re like radiation, invisible, powerful, deadly. Get close enough to us, and you start to suffer from radiation sleeping sickness. Yet we’re demons who have to be slaughtered, if the voices in your head are to be believed. These poor norms are caught between two sets of powers. They’re lucky we’re just making them sleep. A few minutes later and even the DJ’s and local store clerks are out.

  The only one awake is Alia. She’s managed to crawl into a bar, and she’s downing large amounts of whiskey from the bottle. Her illusions are gone, and I finally get to see her real face. She can’t be more than ten years old. That’s why Tamara’s darts didn’t work. They were aimed too high. She’s barely four foot. And she’s ugly. Not everyday ugly—she had major genetic problems: oversized cranium, malformed palette, cleft lip—mother-was-probably-her-sister-type ugly. Her tee
th are gray and look like they belong to an infant. Her arms are deformed, almost flippers. Her knees can’t handle the weight of her thighs, so they buckle constantly. Her organs are too large for her rib cage so they press against skin that’s so translucent, you can see veins everywhere. She’s got to have some extra sensory ability just to get around because those eyes can’t focus together. It looks like she tried to grow a second nose by her right temple, but it just ended up as a cancerous-looking growth. She breathes in a hiss. I couldn’t do this to someone on my most vindictive day.

  “Don’t you look at me like that.” Can’t figure out who she’s talking to, me or Tamara. Tamara has her hand over her mouth and seems to feel genuine pity. Something that, even without the illusion, I just can’t seem to muster.

  “Don’t you look at me like I’m some sort of freak,” she says. I’m not sure if she’s slurring her words because of the liquor, or if that’s just the way she talks. “You are just like me. Just like me.”

  Tamara has more courage than I do. She sits across a table from the thing that just invaded our minds and tried to kill us. She doesn’t say anything, though, just stares. Alia tries to raise her powers against her, but Tamara does something with a wave of her hand that makes Alia wince. The creature breathes hard before speaking again.

  “See, you’re like me. A freak. Only difference is, you’re a pretty freak.”

  “So you say, yeah?” Tamara says, giving up some sightless fight.

  “Don’t do that,” the thing hisses.

  “What?”

  “The patronizing. You won, yeah. But don’t patronize. I deserve more than that. I made it big, get me? Me and Prentis made . . .” She takes a drink. I stand behind my girl, looking down at the thing. “Me and Prentis. We were like sisters growing up. Ran away from the group home together. Prentis was older. She knew the street. Everybody knew her. She had the dogs and cats and rats and birds. And they all loved her. And she made them love me, too. No people did. I learned to read when I was one. I could talk by two. By three I could write. I was special. No one cared. All they saw was that I was ugly. But Prentis cared. She took care of me. I wasn’t getting adopted. That much was clear. So when she ran, I went with her. Lived underground with her.”