Six Mad Kings, Chapter 5 by DarkBeta
He had watched Failure dealt, and lesser cards of Death and Rape. But the card faces blurred when he knew the man who held him was Larabee. Now he could not read their value.
"Don't fight him, Ezra! The sociopath drugged Chris first. The effects are cumulative over time, and he hasn't been rational for several hours."
Mr. Jackson's voice, the EMT's dispassionate assessment. And Tanner's rasp was barely audible.
"Chris isn't . . . he's in a bad place."
As if in illustration, Larabee's grip went slack. Ezra risked a countermove that would have gotten his neck broken a few seconds before, but his boss rolled aside, clutching his head. Ezra sat up.
"Josiah?"
"They poisoned all of us. Don't risk too much getting us out. We need you to see he pays."
"Driscoll Smith. Make sure he goes down hard."
Buck's voice, hard with hate.
"Ez, don't let 'em. Don't let 'em," JD murmured.
Failure? The suicide-king leered. He flicked it from view. There would be a cure, or treatments. Priority must be given to removing the team to a less perilous position. Chris needed Nathan's care as soon as possible. Ezra reached for the selection of picks stitched (hastily) into the ragged coat.
"What is the manner of your restraint?"
Buck snorted.
"Can't you just ask if we're tied up, Ez? We got a couple sets of cuffs apiece."
"Along with sufficient rattling chains to supply several dozen ghosts," Josiah added.
"Well within my skills. Mr. Sanchez, if you would provide an aural beacon . . . ."
He found himself flat on the concrete again. This time an effort was made to prevent harm, an arm interposed behind his head at the moment of impact. Long before he could take advantage of that solicitude to escape, he was pinned by the heavier body across his.
Oddly, Ezra felt no immediate surge of fear. Chris Larabee was a source of almost universal intimidation. Ezra had suffered the stress of his regard before now, but this brute self seemed more endangered than dangerous. The hand that pawed at his current redolent garments was clumsy, the swollen fingers unable to grasp the cloth they groped at. A head dropped heavily onto his chest.
"We need to get these cuffs off. What are you doing over there?" Nathan scolded.
"I protest! Mr. Larabee's intervention is responsible for this unavoidable delay."
"Heard him tackle ya. What's the old war dog done now?"
"Were it not for the lack of certain physical concomitants, I would have reason to suspect a personal assault."
Of course Wilmington found that risible. Fortunately he was braying too hard to explain the grounds of his amusement to JD.
"Jes' lie still, Ezra," Vin said. "Chris needs you. Needs somebody . . . outside."
"Well, then, let one of you volunteer!"
"We aren't exactly at liberty, son," Josiah told him, but Vin was speaking too.
"We don't smell right. Not anymore. Maybe not ever. You're the only one as can do it."
"Do what?!"
"Chanu told me about people who could see and hear and taste and feel a whole lot more than normal."
"You knew about this drug before?"
"He said they were supposed to be guardians, but they needed a different kind of person like an anchor, so they know what to pay attention to. Think the stuff Brace gave us, we're sort of turned into the first kind of people."
What an astonishing fragment of superstition to emerge from the taciturn tracker! A sociologist would have a field day if he could persuade Vin into an interview.
The trouble was . . . Vin didn't make many mistakes. Certainly Ezra trusted his "bad feelings" over Josiah's crows.
"And Ezra is the second kind? He is Chris's anchor?"
Not to mention that Nathan's disagreement made any theory more palatable.
So, Larabee needed him now? What payment would be appropriate?
No, he would be expected to aid all the other six. Vin was uncommunicative so far on how to accomplish that, and Ezra was not about to ask for assistance. The instinct that took him through his undercover assignments would have to do.
"Your team needs you, Mr. Larabee. Are we going to assist them?"
"Standish? I don't remember getting drunk."
A rational verbal response. Ezra was vaguely aware of Nathan stating his disbelief, and Josiah praising the god he was intermittently faithful to.
As usual, Mr. Larabee required that his flatly stated words carry an excessive amount of freight. He confessed his condition. Requested reassurance. "Did I drink myself into a fugue? (Have I fallen back that far?)" Warned off his friends. "I may shoot you to put you out of my misery." Asked for a status report.
He also sat up. He kept a hand on Ezra's shoulder though. Ezra sat up too, careful not to move away. Larabee was enough like a cat to chase what fled.
"Hangover?"
"Everything hurts. It's too bright, too loud. Stinks."
He made a gagging sound, and swallowed. That seemed to confirm Vin's prognosis, however inarticulately. Concentrating on the symptoms seemed to exacerbate them.
"You filled your glass too full. Pour some back into the bottle."
"What?"
"Five glasses. Picture them in front of you. How full are the glasses?"
"Brim full," Larabee reported, just as if he really did see the glasses.
Ezra had expected a response along the lines of, "What sort of nonsense are you trying to pull, Standish?" This was . . . progress. Unexpected, but progress.
"The first glass is what you hear. Pour some out. Pour it out until my voice sounds normal to you."
"Then keep talking."
He felt the fingers on his shoulder twitch, as if Larabee mirrored a metaphorical action.
"Of the importunate requests you all make regularly, even daily, that has to be the most disconcerting. 'Shut up, Ez,' or 'why do you use a ten-dollar word for a dime's talk?,' is the level of respect my entirely necessary converse is generally given. Only the knowledge that chemical intervention was required to win this acknowledgement prevents me from suspecting some form of substitution . . . ."
"Got it," Larabee said. "Figures listening to you would taste like brandy. Come on. You're getting the others loose."