Altered America (29 page)

             
"Jimmy, don't—"

             
Moss's eyes widened. "I'll do it. Blow your brains all over the ceiling."

             
Rodney made a sudden movement and Moss spun and shot towards him. The bullet hit a liquor bottle behind the bar, dropping shards of glass into Rodney's face. He screamed out and faltered against the bar before sliding behind it. Jimmy took his chance. He rushed Moss, barreling him over. They both gripped the gun, struggling to try to get control of it. I watched, my eyes watering. The howls increased outside and the minotaur bashed its head against the wall so hard it cracked the wood.

             
"Stop," I said weakly. Then louder. "Stop!"

             
"You son of a bitch!" Jimmy rolled around on the floor with Moss, a tangle of limbs. "I'll kill you!"

             
Jimmy punched Moss in the face and the gun went free, skittering across the floor. A knee to the groin got Jimmy off Moss. Eyes locked on the gun, the frail man clawed his way across the floor even as Jimmy grasped at his ankle.

             
I stood nearby, powerless.

             
The fire jumped to my fingers, smoke curling around my knuckles. "I said stop!"

             
A fireball lobbed from my fingertips, skipping across the wood before tumbling over Moss's body and setting him alight. He screeched and flailed his arms as the fire went from a normal orange to an intense green. Skin dripped from Moss's face as he tried to roll the fire out, but the more he rolled, the darker the flames became, changing to blue, then purple, until they engulfed him in black. Moments later, charred, smoking bones were all that remained of Moss, the shape of his body blasted in dark soot against the floor.

             
Jimmy rushed over to the bar, grabbed the pitcher of water, and tossed it on Moss's body. The bones hissed, but the flames went out. The smell was something awful, like sour barbecue. I covered my nose and slumped down into a chair near the pool table.

             
Rodney rose up from behind the bar, a few bloody nicks from the falling glass, but otherwise unscathed. "Carl. The hell—"

             
"He was going to kill Jimmy." I clutched the arm rests of the chair. "I had to do something."

             
Jimmy pulled at his hair, looking down at Moss's bones. He bit his bottom lip hard. "I can't believe it. What you just did."

             
"I had to—"

             
"It was incredible, Carl. Absolutely incredible."

             
"What?" My mouth hung open. I didn't know if it was from the shock of what happened or the shock of Jimmy actually praising me for something.

             
"Those colors. From orange, to green. Blue, purple, black. It was amazing. Can you do that any time? How long have you been able to do that? I thought you could just do little parlor tricks, but you're a regular freak show, baby brother."

             
"You're seriously not asking him that right now, are you?" Rodney stormed out from behind the bar. He winced as he picked a piece of glass from his cheek. "I want the two of you to clean this mess up and we're never going to talk of it again. I'm serious." A look that was a combination of bewilderment and anger flashed across his face. "I—I have to check on my family."

             
I waved my hands at the grisly mess. "How are we supposed to clean—"

             
Rodney threw on his hat and coat. "Don't care. Do it."

             
The bartender flung the door open and entered into the swirling, blinding dust. I shut my eyes. I hoped it was all a horrible nightmare. I'd done parlor tricks with my flames before, but never hurt anyone with them. Yet there Moss' bones lay, not a stitch of flesh left. I’d burned it all away. My head in my hands, I rocked back and forth in the chair.

             
"We ain't cleaning up nothing," Jimmy said, picking up the gun. "We're going to be rich, Carl. You understand? Damn this minotaur. With your abilities, hell, we could do just about anything. The folks in California would slobber over themselves to see a show with you in it. Who'd have thought my little brother really was something special."

             
He patted me on the shoulder. I swatted it away like an annoying gnat. "I don't know what I just did, but it's not special. It's horrifying."

             
"You kidding?" Jimmy almost danced in place. "
You
are our ticket. To think, my worthless kid brother had something in him all along. Guess you're like a piece of coal. Squeeze you hard enough and a diamond might just come out."

             
"I'm not going to California," I said. "I'm going to go to jail. Don't you understand?"

             
"Bah," Jimmy said, waving it away. "What police would dare arrest you? You could turn them to ash."

             
"I'm not going to—" I just quit talking. Jimmy wasn't listening anyway. He had that gleam in his eyes that no amount of cold water would shake.

             
Jimmy continued to ramble on, waving the gun, pacing about the room, but my eyes locked on Moss' bones, wisps of smoke still coming off them. Never in my dreams did I imagine a simple trick I used now and again to light cigarettes or impress girls could be so destructive. It was as if the more desperate I became, the more intense the flames, the more they changed colors. At the height of my fear, the flames had turned black. That was when my mind seemed to shut down. The wind howled, shrill and piercing to my ears.

             
"So what you think?" Jimmy finally asked.

             
"Yes," I said, oblivious to what I was answering. "I mean, I don't know. What?"

             
"Let's go," Jimmy said with more emphasis. "Get your coat."

             
"What about the minotaur?"

             
"Leave him," Jimmy said. "Don't need him anymore."

             
"But what will happen—"

             
"Don't know, don't care," Jimmy said. "Rodney'll finish him off with a shotgun, I reckon. Not for us to worry abuot."

             
The minotaur snorted, jerking his head.

             
"We can't leave him," I said.

             
"Then, I'll shoot him and we'll be done with it now." Jimmy stalked toward the minotaur, raising up the gun.

             
"No!"

             
The minotaur's head quit jerking about and he looked up at Jimmy, eyes gleaming. "You don't want to do that."

             
Jimmy recoiled back, hands shaking. "What? You talk?"

             
"Yes, I talk," the minotaur said, voice strained and throaty. "Kill me and you'll never leave alive."

             
My face went flush and a tingle went up my spine. Never in my life had I heard that minotaurs could talk. They were always portrayed as grunting, snorting beasts used for manual labor or for people to bet on for bloodsports.

             
Jimmy lowered the gun. "What do you mean, I won't leave here alive?"

             
"The storm," the minotaur said. "The black blizzard. It's getting closer."

             
"Maybe we
should
go." I stood up and pulled Jimmy's arm. "I don't like this one bit."

             
Jimmy took on his normally cocky stance, pointing the gun at the minotaur again. "Oh yeah? Well, it ain't going to do shit to us. You're the one in trouble. We leave you here, you'll be the one to die. I've seen a black blizzard choke the life out of everything within a five mile radius. You think you'll make it chained up here like this?"

             
"You should let me go," the minotaur said. "This is your last chance."

             
"Jimmy—" I tugged on his arm more. He jerked his arm away from me. Not out of annoyance, but from pain. My fingers singed his shirt.

             
"You think you're real smart, huh, talking cow?" Jimmy bared his teeth. "We'll see how much you'll talk with a bullet lodged in your brain."

             
The door burst open. Dust swirled into the tavern, stinging my eyes and bare skin like needles.  I rushed over, slamming my shoulder against it. The wood buckled underneath my weight, but I managed to keep it shut. Something wasn't right, though. It felt as if someone was on the other side beating on it, not just strong gusts of wind.

             
"Something's wrong, Jimmy." I kept my back to the door, blinking dust out of my eyes. The door continued to throb against me. Pulsing like a vein.

             
"I'm gonna finish off this—" Jimmy began, but a window burst on the far side of the tavern, showering the room with glass. When Jimmy ducked down to shield his face, the minotaur lunged forward, his chains snapping from around his neck. Continuing to charge, the beast gored Jimmy and flung him up into the ceiling as more and more dust whipped into the room. Jimmy whined like a wounded dog, spinning in his own blood on the slick floor. The minotaur pushed himself up, his shaggy head dripping. His eyes fell upon me.

             
"Move.” The minotaur pointed at me.

             
Everything in my being wanted to obey, but I couldn't will my muslces to work. Whatever lurked on the other side of the door wasn't natural. I'd been through dozens of dust storms and never one this intense, this persisent.

             
It was alive.

             
"You're not the only one who can use magic, boy." The minotaur held up his hand and squeezed it into a fist. A tendril of blood, sweat, glass, and Moss' blackened bones curled around the minotaur's arm like iron to a magnet. "I won't say this again. Move."

             
"No," I whimpered, my arms tingling, my fingers twitching. A flame tried to form in my index finger, but the wind sputtered it out.

             
"You understand now?" Tiny tornadoes of dust formed around the minotaur's feet. They began to swell, sucking everything in the room towards it. Stools scraped across the floor, bottles of liquor tumbled from the shelves, and papers whipped all about.

             
Jimmy, his face looking like stretched taffy, held his gut, trying not to get sucked into the minotaur's magic. His hair appeared on the verge of being jerked from his head. One hand stretched out toward the gun.

             
When the minotaur saw, he twitched his hand and the gun went spiraling out the window.

             
The door cracked behind me. "Please. Don't."

             
The minotaur laughed. A hollow sound that bandied about the room. In turn, I clenched my own fist as the small tornadoes grew larger and larger.

             
Jimmy screamed and went spinning around the room, hitting every wall, the floor, the ceiling, the tendril of gore, dust, and glass propelling him. His arms outstreched to me as his screams whirred about.

             
Why didn't the minotaur just do the same to me? Why didn't he hurl me aside? I looked up to him, wiping the tears from my eyes. "You fear me?"

             
The wind died down and Jimmy crashed into the shelves behind the bar. From the window, I saw dozens of eyes staring out from behind the black dust. More minotaurs.

             
The minotaur snorted. "Fear you? Of course not. I respect you. That's why I'm giving you the option. My tribe may not be so forgiving."

             
I couldn't believe it. He was actually protecting me from the others. Moss wanting to get him out of the tavern as soon as possible made sense. He was trying to actually save us all. The only reason the black blizzard hadn't obliterated the tavern was because the minotaur was protecting us.

             
"You hurt my brother," I said. "He may die."

             
"Don't you think he deserves it?" The minotaur said. "Has he ever been kind to a single living thing?"

             
I tried to think of a moment, but couldn't. He was right. My brother had always been a dirtbag. But he was my dirtbag. "He's still my brother."

             
The minotaur walked over to the bar and drug Jimmy out, bloody, hair matted, eyes barely open. He sputtered something, but I couldn't make it out. "I will take your brother. He must pay for his crimes against my tribe. His death will not be swift nor painless."

             
"Carl—"Jimmy mumbled. "Kill—"