Authors: Playing for Keeps [html]
Lafferty, Mur (26 page)
Ian whipped his head around and winced. "Dude, they must have hit you harder than they hit me. What do you mean ‘where is Alex?’"
Peter looked around, blushing slightly, "I'm really not following today very well."
"Maybe your blood sugar is low," Keepsie said. "You want Colette to make you some food?"
Peter nodded. "Cheeseburger and fries, please."
Keepsie reached out and squeezed his hand. He smiled at her and squeezed back.
In the kitchen, Colette fussed around the stove.
"You know, you can come join us," Keepsie told her.
Colette turned, murder on her flushed, round face. "Something is wrong." “You mean besides the fact that we're trapped in a bar with death and chaos right outside the door?" Keepsie laughed, able to relax a bit now that Peter was back.
Colette didn't answer. Keepsie sighed and said, "Peter is back, he’s OK.
He wants a cheeseburger and fries."
Colette raised her head slowly. "He wants what?"
"Cheeseburger and fries," Keepsie said.
Colette reached out and grasped the butcher knife on the counter.
Keepsie threw out her arms to placate Colette. "Whoa, what's going on?
What's wrong?"
"Peter doesn't eat well-done burgers." Colette’s voice was cold.
"So? He's been through a lot today."
"But he doesn't eat them like that. He doesn’t have mayo on his burger.
And the man is a cheddar man, not American cheese."
"And that's what he wants?"
Her cook nodded slowly. "That's what whoever ordered this burger wants."
"So you're saying what?"
"Dammit, Keepsie, are you still addled?" She waved the knife around as she gestured, and Keepsie stepped back. "Heroes are torturing citizens, you saw a woman with no power turn into a pillar of fire, and you’re saying that one of them can't take on Peter's shape and try to get the drugs from you, or worse?"
All of the hair on Keepsie’s arms stood straight up and she shivered.
"Make the burger. I'm going to see what I can find out."
"Try to be quicker out there than you are in here," Colette said, turning back to her stove. Keepsie ground her teeth but didn't reply.
She paused in the door and said, "Colette, what was in that drug?"
"Zupra. Pumped up, jacked up, enhanced, and the good Lord knows what else. But definitely Zupra. Everything you told me about what it will do to Third Wave and a super is true. But it's unstable and will screw you up if you take too much."
"And where is it?"
Colette stopped cutting tomatoes.
"Colette. We don't know what we're up against. It's better for one of us to get fucked up rather than we all die."
Colette pointed with the butcher knife, dripping tomato juice down the blade and onto the floor, at the Lost and Found box. Keepsie relaxed. "Good.
Leave it there."
"Like I could move it if I wanted to," Colette said coldly.
Keepsie took a deep breath and put on the face she would have liked to wear if Peter really were back.
Dammit Peter, where are you?
***
"What the hell took you so long?" asked Ian. "Peter's starving."
"Colette had to tell me about the drugs," Keepsie said, “so that took some time.”
Peter looked up from the glass of red wine he held. "Oh? What did she say?"
"She doesn't know what it does, only that it's pretty powerful stuff."
Keepsie kept her head down as she slipped behind the bar and pulled a pint of beer. "We have no idea what it does."
"But didn't it enhance your powers?" Peter asked.
"Did it?" Keepsie looked as if she were trying to remember. "I can't remember much. And I thought you didn't remember anything anyway."
"Ian told me," he said.
Keepsie glared at Ian for an instant and moved to sit beside Peter. She sipped her beer. "Damn, I'm so tired of all of this. I wish it could just be over.
"We need to think of another plan," Peter said decisively.
"Oh? What do you have in mind?" she said.
"We need to make a deal with someone. We're surrounded; it's clear that we can't beat all of them."
"Dude, what are you saying? Surrender?" Ian asked, choking on his beer.
"Not surrender," Peter said, backpedaling. "I just think we need to pick a side to go with and support them. Then the conflict should sort itself out, right?"
Keepsie began nodding, thinking fast. "Let me think about this." She got up.
"Dude, you're fucking kidding," Ian said. "Clever Jack and Doodad tried to kill us enough today to be off the list. Heroes, torture and kidnapping, also not cool. Who has the least suck value? ‘Cause I'm thinking they're all in a tie."
"Let me think," Keepsie repeated, putting Ian back in his seat with a look. "I'm going to check on Peter's food." “And I need to use the bathroom, if you’ll excuse me,” Peter said. He walked across the bar and into the women’s room, and then came right back out, blushing madly. Then he went into the men’s room and yelled when he saw Doodad’s body.
“Colette was right,” Michelle said. “That’s not Peter.”
He came back out. Ian laughed at him. “Dude, you forgot pretty much everything, didn’t you?”
Peter nodded and attempted to smile, but he glared at them all for a moment. “So how long are we going to keep… that villain in the men’s room?”
“I am going to hand him over to the authorities when all of this is done,”
Keepsie said. “Probably the police.”
“Not the Academy?”
“Peter, honey, there is no Academy anymore,” she said.
"You both have lost your mind," Ian said, and headed to the women’s room.
Keepsie relaxed a fraction; Ian almost blew it. Not that he knew there was something to blow.
She met Colette just inside the doorway, chatting with Michelle. The cheeseburger sat in its basket, perfectly grilled, with a garnish of an orange slice.
Colette grinned at Keepsie's raised eyebrow. "Just trust me. And be ready." She pressed a pill into Keepsie's hand. "We'll find out right now for sure if it's him."
She slipped the knife into her apron strings and led them out of the kitchen. Keepsie and Michelle shared a tense look, and Michelle said, "I'm going to check and see if the guys need any beer." She looked at Tomas and Barry, sitting quietly in their usual booth.
"Your shoulder up to it?"
Michelle nodded, flexing. "Not sure how, but I'm healed."
Keepsie palmed the pill and followed Colette.
The cook put the burger right under Peter's nose. He rubbed his forehead and inhaled gratefully. "That smells amazing, my compliments to the chef."
"Smells good, does it?" she asked without smiling.
"Very. I'm famished."
"Doesn't remind you of anything?"
Peter look alarmed and glanced around. Michelle was setting drinks on a bar tray, watching them. Keepsie waited in the doorway, wondering what Colette was up to.
He forced a laugh. "I'm sorry, my memory is not what it used to be."
"So nothing smells odd about it?" Colette said.
"Aaaaahhhh…" Peter sounded as if he remembered something. "Right.
Let me see." He stuck his nose right up to the basket and inhaled deeply.
"Colette," he said, a teasing tone to his voice. "Did you leave a hair in here for me to find?"
"No," she said. "But I did figure you'd find the present underneath the orange slice. I left it just for you."
Peter lifted the orange slice and recoiled back, falling off the barstool.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
Keepsie squashed her final doubts and tossed the pill into her mouth, gulping it down with her beer.
Colette grinned and held her knife tightly. "Nothing at all, Peter. Or whoever you are."
Peter's eyes widened and he threw his head back, slamming it against the floor. He screamed and screamed, hands pulling at his hair. Blood began pouring out of his nose.
Colette strode forward with the knife. She raised it, but Keepsie chased after her and caught her wrist.
"No. Wait."
Her ears were beginning to buzz again. "Just. Wait."
Keepsie tried to keep her wits about her but the world began to glow with a fuzzy white light. She shook her head. Peter's screams seemed far away, and she struggled to focus on them.
She still held Colette's hand, which was glowing as well. Michelle glowed too, with her tray of beer held ready to fling at the convulsing figure on the floor.
Colette's hand relaxed and she stepped back. Keepsie knelt by Peter, who began vomiting. She held his head to the side and looked up at her friends who had surrounded them.
"It's Peter," she said.
"What? How do you know?" Colette asked.
"Look. You all are glowing again. So is he. I doubt he'd be glowing it if weren't him. Hey, that thing coming out of his nose isn't glowing. Do you think that’s the problem?"
Peter continued to choke and vomit while a long rope of fire, hissing in the blood, streamed from Peter's nose. It coiled on the floor beside his head, coalescing in the shape of a woman.
It seemed to last a long time. Keepsie watched in detached interest, still holding Peter's head. When all of the fire was out and the woman lay, sizzling in the blood and vomit, Keepsie turned her attention to Peter.
His nose continued to bleed but he had stopped vomiting. He looked up at her with heavily lidded eyes.
"Keepsie," he managed to choke out before he went unconscious.
Keepsie smiled at her friends. "There. All better."
They stared at her.
***
Timson continued to burn on Keepsie’s floor, which strangely did not smolder. The heat wafting off of her kept them away, but Colette dumped some ice water on her to keep the temperature down. The woman lay there, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, captured by Keepsie’s power.
"What happened?" Michelle said, shaking her head in disbelief.
Keepsie stroked Peter's hair. "He had a Timson in his nose, I think. I could feel her in there. She was hurting him. She was trying to take what’s mine."
"What do we do with her?" Tomas nudged her with his work boot.
"We could put her in the freezer with Alex, but then that would negate the purpose of putting Alex in there."
"No. We're not putting something on fire in my freezer," Colette said.
"Why not just throw her out the door?" Michelle asked.
Keepsie shook her head. "She tried to kill Peter. Well, she's tried to kill lots of us. But this one is pretty gross. She's gone off the deep end, I'm sad to say. We need to hold her here."
"Now we're back to where." Colette said.
"Put her in the bathroom with Doodad," Barry said. "She'll be out of our hair then."
Keepsie clapped her hands. “And they’ll be reunited!”
“Keepsie, have you tried to figure out what that drug does to you?"
Colette said.
Keepsie held her arm out, admiring the glow. She reminded herself of a unicorn. "Well. I'm clearly high."
"Your powers, Keepsie. What about your powers?"
"We can't be hurt," Michelle shrugged her shoulder without wincing. “Or rather, we heal quickly."
Keepsie peered at Peter's face. The ropy burns that had streaked his face as he had labored and delivered Timson were rapidly losing their angry red color.
Colette nodded. "What else?"
Keepsie looked around at all of them, with everything in the bar glowing brightly with a white aura. "I can feel everything that I own, my things, my friends, my assets." Keepsie snapped her head up. "Hey, let's go out and see the battle!"
Colette looked at Michelle. "Looks like you're in charge until she comes back to us."
"Jumping Jesus! What the fuck happened here?"
Ian had returned from the bathroom.
***
Keepsie continued to stroke Peter's hair. He had such nice hair. Dark brown, almost black. Sure, there was blood in it, and some of the ends were curled and melted from getting too close to some fire or another, and it could stand to be washed, but it was nice because it belonged to Peter.
Michelle and Colette whispered behind the bar. Ian sat with Tomas and Barry with a stunned look on his face as they tried to explain what had happened. Ian had explained that he’d heard the screaming, but he had been on the john, and sometimes there were higher priorities.
Keepsie realized the feeling of forgetting something important was getting familiar, and she struggled to grasp it.
With a sigh, she lowered Peter's head the floor, careful to keep it out of the vomit, kissed his forehead, and wandered over to Colette and Michelle.
"So what's the next plan?" she asked.
"Keepsie, you saved Peter's life by taking that drug. Probably all of our lives. But you're, well-" Michelle trailed off.
"-too high to help right now," Colette finished.
"But you gave me the drug."
She nodded. "I know. And I don't regret it. But that doesn't hide the fact that you're no good to us right now."
Keepsie watched them retreat into the kitchen, still whispering. She frowned and crossed her arms. It wasn't fair. Here she was with all this power…
She turned and wandered into the ladies room. No one paid her any attention. They'd propped the immobile Timson up against the wall (Keepsie had been outvoted when she asked to put Timson's feet in the toilet to keep her cool). The doctor had taken on her stone form and looked very much like a statue.
Keepsie hefted Timson easily. "I know how to prove I'm useful."
She walked out into the bar and kept going nonchalantly when the three men looked up at her.
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