PART III
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Neville:
The bayou shivered at my back and the house fell still, all cries and laughter inside quelled. Lights flooded the front lawn, but here in the back, shadows reigned. Just like Ia€?d planned.
I climbed up the side of the house, then yanked open a pair of weathered plantation shutters. With a grin, I peered in the windowa€”I was the last monster these kids would see. I waited until one of them looked me right in the eyes before I smashed the glass and tossed in a fistful of liquid light. Then I slid down the rope and dropped to the ground. If both the Domingue boys had been in the room, I probably would have lingered longer than I should have. I knew my boss wasna€?t going to approve of my methods on this one, but that Domingue krewe needed to be taught a lesson. Apparently they had all forgotten about what had happened thirteen years ago, that night when the three of them, father and both sons, wandered out of that Fresh Start plant late at night.
Well, I never forgets.
I was still running through tall grass toward the shelter of the bayou when a blast of light sizzled and cracked out all the upstairs windows. A heartbeat later, a battalion of trees surrounded me and I heard the soft call of my boys, waiting for me in a boat. I was jogging then, knee-deep, through Louisiana mud, all of my muscles feeding off a sweet-as-sugar gen-spike high. With a leap, I tumbled into the boat and we were speeding away, carving a path toward the Mississippi.
We flies through river mud and swamp water, and I is rememberinga€”
Those Domingues all thought it had been just another pro-death rally outside their plant that night. They had probably hoped that the barrage of catcalls would fade away and the protestors would go home to their perfect little One-Timer families in their perfect little One-Timer houses.
They was wrong.
That was when rocks had started to fly through the night sky. Invisible and lethal. Followed by a rough growling thunder as the rally changed, turned savage, almost bestial.
a€?Death is a choice,a€? one man had cried, leading others to join him in a chant.
a€?Your clones dona€?t have souls!a€?
a€?Repent, Domingue! One life, one death!a€?
Stones hit flesh, then cement, then bone. Tears mixed with blood.
My krewe had laughed between the blows.
In the midst of it all, a rock hit Old Man Domingue square in the temple and, without a sound, he slumped to the ground. He never got back up again.
Dead by my command. Just likes I wanted.
And now, the wind was rushing over us, cold and wet. I shivered as one of my gutter punks wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Those Domingues had no idea what it was like on my side of the gutter, or how many back-alley knife fights it had taken to earn my first black-market jump. Ia€?d shuffled along from one miserable and maimed clone to another, until finally I proved I could lead my own ragtag battalion of misfits.
Soon we were all going to get our reward. That fountain of eternal life was going to pour out, free and strong for me and my boys.
Or I was going to make those Domingues wish theya€?d never invented resurrection.