S
moke drifted into Abraham’s nostrils. He coughed. Lights burned his eyes. The surrounding room was dark. Dr. Jack Lassiter paced around his table, puffing on a thick cigar. The orderlies, Otis and Haymaker, stood nearby with their stun rods in their big mitts.
Abraham wet his lips and asked, “Don’t hospitals have a strict no-smoking policy, you jerk?”
Jack leaned his head back and chuckled, continuing to pace. His eyes were hard as coal, and he spoke with a strong, penetrating voice. “Glad you are back, Abraham.” He stopped at the end of the table, where Abraham’s toes were covered by a hospital blanket. Jack looked him dead in the eye and scratched the short, curly brown hairs on his head. “I could see it in your face the moment that you woke. Your eyes, they aren’t like the other man’s. There is a softness to them. The other’s are like burning daggers. The jaw isn’t as tight either.” He huffed out a stream of smoke. “Very telling.”
“If only I could applaud your brilliance,” Abraham said as he wiggled his fingers. “A true master of psychiatry. I mean, you aren’t Freud, Niles, or Frasier Crane, but you have some savvy.”
Jack chuckled heavily. He poked a finger at Abraham and said, “You know, it’s good that you have maintained a sense of humor about all of this. It’s quite remarkable. The others don’t fare so well, making you… unique.”
“Momma always told me that I was special.” He eyeballed Otis and Haymaker. “And not ugly.” Talking smack came easy to him. He used it as a tactic while he tried to gather his senses. The last time he had been back home, Mandi was with him. They were with her cousin, Sidney, and Sidney’s mysterious husband, John Smoke. They were in a helicopter when he passed out and wound up back on Titanuus. His nose itched. “Uh, I’ve got a bad itch that I can’t scratch, right on the tip of my nose.” He eyed Otis, who was built like a tackling dummy and had a swollen jaw. “How about you help a brother out?”
Otis rapped his stun rod in his hand and said, “I’ve got a cure for that itch.”
Abraham clucked with laughter. He tugged against his bonds as he did so, testing the firm leather straps binding his wrists and ankles. Short of transforming into the Hulk or some other super-strong beast, he wasn’t going anywhere. Where are Mandi, Smoke, and Sid? What the heck happened?
Continuing to delay, he directed his voice toward Otis and said, “You remind me of Luke Cage. Do you know who that is?”
Otis gave him a funny look.
“Mister Jenkins, you can stop with the charades. I already know that your brash attempts at humor are a coping mechanism when you are uncomfortable,” Dr. Jack said. He was dressed in camo hunting gear complete with a beige vest, and he had a sidearm on his hip. “I’ve read your file many times.”
Abraham eyed Jack up and down and asked, “So you’ve been hunting again?” He said this as his thoughts raced back to Titanuus. He’d been with the Henchmen, and they’d just entered the mouth of the Wound. Melris the Elderling was going to lead them into the dark bowels of the chasm to find two more gems of power for the Crown of Stones. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had some venison. I could go for a nice cut of deer steak with a side of scrambled eggs. And some butter biscuits. Like the ones my grandma used to make.”
“Otis,” Dr. Jack said, “Why don’t you come over here and scratch his nose?”
“Oh, it’s fine now,” Abraham said.
Otis strolled over to the table with a lazy stride. He scratched Abraham’s nose and stuck the stun rod in his side. Abraham cried out as his body arched and spasmed on the table.
Otis stuck him again and again, and Abraham’s body jumped on the table.
“That’s enough,” Dr. Jack said.
Otis shocked Abraham again.
“That’s enough!” Dr. Jack replied.
With a nod of triumph, Otis pulled his stun rod away and resumed his place by Haymaker with a grin on his face.
Abraham groaned. Painful tingles coursed through his body. The spot where Otis stuck him ached and burned. With sweat beading down his face, he panted and asked, “What’s with the One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
treatment? I haven’t done anything.” He glared at Dr. Jack. “What is your deal?”
Dr. Jack’s eyes narrowed. His voice rose. “Haven’t done anything? Haven’t done anything? You are the one fouling this entire operation up!” He sucked hard on the cigar, making the ashes burn bright red. “I don’t know what you are doing in Titanuus, mister, but you need to stop doing it now! Do you understand me?”
Abraham’s eyes widened. He’d never seen Dr. Jack lose his cool. The man had become incensed. The dude is having a meltdown. Good.
“Hey, I didn’t ask for this to happen to me. It happened not because of something I did but because of something that you did.”
Dr. Jack approached from the right side of the table and said, “You are the only one, the only one, that is giving this operation fits. Why can’t you be like the others and butt out?”
“I don’t even know what you are talking about?”
“Don’t play games with me. You know what you are doing. You are fighting for the king. King Hector.” Dr. Jack hit the edge of the table. “You side with him!”
Abraham had no idea what to make of that illuminating statement. His fingers danced at his sides. He looked deep into Dr. Jack’s stone-cold eyes, unsure if that was the same person he’d met before or not. For some reason, he was getting a strong vibe that Dr. Jack might have been to Titanuus—either that, or he’d talked to someone that had. Someone like Eugene Drisk. He wouldn’t be the only one either.
“If I’m such a problem, why don’t you kill me?” He regretted saying it the moment the words came out. The last thing he needed was to suggest his own death.
Dr. Jack blew another blast of smoke in his face and said, “Because, just like you said, you are special.”
“But you tried to kill me already.”
“Not you. Just the fools that have been helping you.”
I’ve got to find out what happened to Mandi. How did I get captured? What happened to her?
“You seem to have a good grasp of what is going on in Titanuus, but what do you want from me?”
“I want to know how you move from body to body. As you’ve figured out, there are others, otherworlders, like you, that come, but they cannot come and go. Only you.” Dr. Jack started to pace around the table again. “Out of all of them, only you have this special talent. We need to harness it. You are the gateway from here to Titanuus.” He stopped, turned, and poked Abraham on the head. “Perhaps I can drill it out.”
The heat of the cigar burned just over Abraham’s eye. His watery eye sent a tear down his cheek. The truth was, he probably could work with Jack Lassiter. It might get him everything he ever wanted. The problem was that he didn’t want to. He wouldn’t, either. After all, he served the king. Right is right, and wrong is wrong.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t play along. “Look, Dr. Jack, I didn’t ask for this, but maybe we can work something out.”
Dr. Jack held the cigar over Abraham’s eye. “Oh, you want to bargain now. Interesting. The other man inside you, Ruger Slade—he was hard as a stone. He wouldn’t mutter a word. Nothing I tried would break him.” He pulled the cigar away. “A fascinating case, actually. But he is the bigger problem, it seems. Bigger than you, a washed-up, entitled athlete turned into a worthless trucker.”
“Hey, don’t knock truckers. They are the lifeblood of this country. Who do you think hauls your twenty-dollar cigars to your humidor and fills your fridge with imported beer?”
Dr. Jack grinned and said, “My wife. And by the way, it’s a one-hundred-dollar cigar.”
“Good for you.” Abraham sighed. “Look, man, I’m tired of all of this. I want to stay home. What do you want to know?”
