[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
of possibility and hope.
Have you finished your polish of the Wiz s speech? she asked. Hmmm, good salad. I like the bits of
walnuts and blue cheese.
It s all done. he replied with a sigh. Another masterpiece. Simon will be quoted for weeks afterward.
He grinned. I Shall live vicariously through him, his words my own.
Yes, well, I don t know how much of this vicarious-living business you want to indulge in. she mused,
lifting her wineglass and studying it speculatively. He seemed pretty on edge after Andrew Wren s visit.
Ross looked up from his salad. Really? What was that all about anyway, did you ever find out?
She shook her head. But it s never good news for a public figure when an investigative reporter cones
calling,
No, I suppose not.
Jenny told me Simon asked for the books cataloguing donations and expenditures to be brought up for
Wren to loots at. What does that suggest to you?
Financial impropriety. Ross shrugged. Wren will hunt a long time before he ll find evidence of that.
Simon s a fanatic about keeping clean books. He can account for every penny received or spent.
He went back to eating his salad. Stef continued to study her wineglass, finally taking a sip from it. I just
don t like the way Simon is behaving, she said finally. He isn t himself lately. Something is bothering
him.
Ross finished chewing, kept his eyes lowered, then forced himself to look up at her and smile.
Something is bothering almost everyone, Stef. The thing to remember is, mostly we have to work these
things out by ourselves.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
John Ross dreams. It is the same dream, the only dream he has anymore that he can remember upon
waking. It is a dream of the future he was sworn to prevent as a Knight of the Word, and each time it
reoccurs it is a little darker than it was before.
This time is no exception.
He stands on a hillside south of Seattle, watching as the city burns. Hordes of once-men and demons
pour through gaps in the shattered defenses and drive the defenders steadily back toward the water that
hems them in on all sides but his Feeders cavort through the carnage and drink in the terror and frenzy
and rage of the dying and wounded. It is a nightmarish scene, the whole of the scorched and burning
landscape awash in rain and mist, darkened by clouds and gloom, wrapped in a madness that finds voice
in the screams and cries of the humans it consumes.
But the feelings that fill Ross are unfamiliar ones. They are not of frustration or anger, not of despair or
sadness, as they have been each time before.
His feelings now are dull and empty, devoid of anything but irritation and a faint boredom. He stands
with a group of the city s survivors, but be has no regard for them either. Rather, he is a shell, armoured
and invulnerable, but emotionless. He has no idea bow he became this way, but it is a transcending
experience to realize it has happened. He is no longer a Knight of the Word; he is something else entirely.
The humans he stands with are not a part of him. They do not meet his gaze as he looks over at them
speculatively. They cower in his presence and huddle before him. They are frightened of him. They are
terrified.
Then the old man approaches and whispers that be knows him, that he remembers him from years
earlier His hollow eyed gaze is vacant, and his voice is flat and toneless. He looks and speaks as if be is
disconnected from his body. He repeats the familiar words. You were there, in the Emerald City! You
killed the Wizard of Oz! It was Halloween night, and you were wearing a mask of death! They were
celebrating his life, and you killed him!
He shoves the old man away roughly. the old man collapses in a heap and begins to sob. He lies helpless
in the dirt and rainwater, his ragged clothes and beard matted with mud, his frail body shaking.
Ross looks away. He knows the words the old man speaks are true, but he does not care. He has
walled away all guilt long since, and killing no longer means anything to him.
He realizes in that moment that he is no longer part of the humans clustered at his feet. He has shed his
humanity; he has left it behind him in a past he can barely remember.
Suddenly, he understands why the humans look at him as they do.
He is the enemy who has come to destroy them.
Ross and Stef walked slowly back along First Avenue after leaving Umberto s, arms linked, shoulders
hunched against the cold. The air was still hazy and damp and the sky still gray, but there was no rain yet.
The street lamps of Pioneer Square blazed above them, casting their shadows on the sidewalk as they
passed, dark human patterns lengthening and then fading with each bright new circle.
The dream had come again last night, for the first time in several weeks, and Ross was still wrestling with
its implications. In this latest version of the future, Simon Lawrence was still dead, and Ross was still his
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
killer. But now Ross was one of the bad guys, no longer a Knight of the Word, no longer even a passive
observer as he had been every time the dream came to him before. He was some sort of demon clone, a
creature of the Void and only barely recognizable as having ever been human.
He frowned into the upturned collar of his coat. It was ridiculous, ludicrous to think that any of this could
ever come to pass.
So why was he having this dream?
Why was he being plagued with visions of a future he would never let happen?
The state legislature is going to pass a bill before the end of the week that will cut back on state funding
for welfare recipients to match what the federal government has already done in cutting back its funding
to the state. Stef s voice was soft and detached in the gloom. Maybe that s what has got Simon so
upset.
Well, by all means, let s put more people back on the streets Ross shook his head, thinking of other
things.
Welfare encourages people not to work, John. You know that. You hear it all the time. Cutting off their
aid will force them to get out there and get a job.
Good thing it s all so simple. We can just ignore the culture of poverty. We can just pretend that poor
people are just rich people without money. We can tell ourselves that educational, social, and cultural
opportunities are the same for everyone. We can ignore the statistics on domestic violence and teen
pregnancy and rate of exposure to crime and disease and family stability. Cut off welfare and put em to
work. I don t know why anyone didn t think of it before. We can have everyone off the street and
working by the end of the month, I bet.
Yep. Then we can tackle a cure for cancer and get that out of the way, too. She snuggled her face into
his shoulder, her dark hair spilling over him like silk.
I liked our dinner, he ventured, trying to take the edge off his frustration.
She nodded into his coat. Good. I liked it, too.
They rounded the corner of Main at Elliott Bay Book Company and started for home. Occidental Park
sprawled ahead of them, empty of life, watched over by the wooden totems, spectral sentinels in the
gloom. The homeless had moved on to warmer spots for the night, abandoning their daytime haunt. Some
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]