Burn for Me

Mad Rogan’s magic brushed against me and I fought an urge to jump back.

“As I said, I don’t judge,” he said. “If you had kicked her in the face instead of giving her chicken, I’d need to know. If you had hurled the chicken into the water and made her swim for it, I’d need to know that too. The more information I have, the better I can anticipate your actions when it will matter. For example, if a starving man pulls a gun on you and you get the upper hand, you will likely let him go because you will feel sorry for him. That’s the kind of person you are.”

“And what kind of person are you?”

His face was hard. “The kind who shoots first.”

The bridge curved behind the office buildings. We walked past the first half-sunken giant of concrete. Ahead, the bridge ended abruptly. I stopped.

“Damn it.”

“We’ll have to take the main bridge?” Mad Rogan asked.

I reached into my light jacket, pulled my gun out of the holster, and put it in my pocket. Mad Rogan watched me with a slightly amused expression. We turned left, picking our way across a rickety, narrow bridge until it spat us out into the open space between the office buildings. Here the ground rose slightly. Over the years, the Pit’s inhabitants had dumped piles of gravel, concrete, and brick chunks onto it until a narrow rectangular island had formed. Wooden bridges thrust from it, curving in all directions. Directly in front of me, men and women peered from the windows of an abandoned building. To the right, a group of people crowded around something.

I stepped onto the island. The group parted and a tall man strode out. He was skinny and pale, his arms and legs too long for his body. Limp reddish hair framed his face, the tangled strands the exact color of a ripe peach.

“Peaches?” Mad Rogan murmured next to me.

“Yes.”

“Anything I need to know?”

“He summons swarms of poisonous swamp flies.”

It’s a known fact that child molesters look just like normal, ordinary people. Peaches looked like you would imagine a child molester might look. His face wasn’t unpleasant, but there was something deeply unsettling in his gaze. Something sick and creepy. It rolled over you like old oil from a fryer.

Peaches pointed over my shoulder at Mad Rogan. “Hey you! You! What the fuck are you doing in my house?”

On his left, a tall man jerked a Glock up. A woman in a black tank top and dirt-smeared jeans next to him raised a Chiappa Rhino. The distinct barrel was a dead giveaway. Just what we needed.

“We don’t want any trouble,” I said. “We’re just passing through.”

“Trouble? I am fucking trouble, bitch!” Peaches waved his arms. His face flushed. He was building himself up. If he’d been a wild turkey, he would have puffed out all his feathers. He’d work himself up to violence in a minute. Mad Rogan must’ve set off some alarm in Peaches’ brain that told him something was to be gained by humiliating him. “You think you can just come through here with your bitch?”

Mad Rogan didn’t answer.

“You mute, punk? You mute?” Spittle flew from Peaches’ lips. He closed the distance.

My heart sped up. My knees trembled slightly from the rush of adrenaline.

Peaches looked like he was about to ram Mad Rogan with his chest. Mad Rogan looked at him. It was a cold, emotionless stare. Peaches decided that two feet of space was close enough. “You’re in my place now! I am in charge here!”

His hand barely missed me as he flailed around. I took a step back.

“Don’t you fucking move! Shoot her if she moves.”

The man on the left clicked the safety off his Glock.

Peaches leaned closer. “I tell you what, if I was in a good mood, I’d fuck you up and send you back without your bitch, but I’m in a bad mood. I’m in a bad mood, punk. I’m gonna shoot your bitch right here and then I’m gonna put you in a hole. You worth money, punk, because you look like you worth money.”

I could shoot Peaches from where I stood. I’d shot through my pocket before. I would have to kill him though, because if he lived, the flies he summoned would turn me into a cluster of boils. Aiming through a pocket was tricky.

Mad Rogan smiled a big, wide, conciliatory grin and raised his hands. “Hey, hey. No need to get worked up. Look, no gun. I can see you’re the man. You’re in charge here.”

“That’s right!”

“You’re a businessman, right?” Mad Rogan kept smiling, his expression pleasant and placating. “Let’s talk, like two businessmen.” He invited Peaches to a bridge stretching back the way we came. “Let’s just calm down for a minute and talk, right, buddy?”

“Talk money, punk.” Peaches moved with Mad Rogan onto the bridge.

Mad Rogan strolled next to him. “I can see you own all of this and you being in charge and all . . .”

Mad Rogan grabbed Peaches by the throat, kicked his feet out from under him, and hurled him into the water as if the tall man weighed nothing.

Several things happened at the same time: I yanked my gun out and took a shooter stance; the barrels of the man’s Glock and the woman’s Chiappa fell off the guns as if sliced off by a razor blade; and Peaches splashed in the water. We all stopped moving, me with my Ruger pointing at the group, and the two shooters staring blankly at their disfigured firearms.

The larger man opened his hand and let the Glock’s remains fall to the ground.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” Peaches howled, rising to his feet, up to his hips in water. Dark green dots swirled around him. A swarm of fat flies shot out of his hands, curving around him like a shawl.

Mad Rogan flicked his fingers. The wall of the nearest building broke off in one long, twenty-foot slab, slid off the building, and crushed Peaches.

Oh my God.

Mad Rogan turned to face the crowd. Behind him a large crack split the building’s side, and bricks and mortar rained down onto the first chunk. Nobody screamed.

The last brick fell onto the pile. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

“Now we know,” Mad Rogan said, his voice cold. “I’m in charge. I’m in charge of you. I’m in charge of the guy next to you. I’m in charge of the ground you’re standing on. When I’m gone, I don’t care who is in charge. When I leave here, you can fight and kill each other over who is running things while I’m not here. But let’s be clear: when I’m here, when you see me, I’m in charge.”