“ANOTHER?” THE BARTENDER ASKED, tipping the whiskey bottle forward as a prod.
Raiff eased his glass out to meet it halfway, a sign of concession as well as necessity. Nothing stood out more than a man not drinking in a bar like this, which was short on swank but long on atmosphere. That is, if you considered atmosphere to include warped floors, dim lighting, and the residue of too much hopelessness hanging in the hazy air in the form of a musty combination of odors.
Raiff sipped his drink, thinking maybe he should add some ice this round. The bar featured a mirror back with several cracks denoting a whole bunch of years of bad luck for somebody. A thick layer of grime coated the glass, obscuring the reflections of those caught to the point of muddling their features into unrecognizable. But it was enough for Raiff to track motion, and motion was a better giveaway and predictor of intentions anyway, especially bad ones.
Raiff was a Guardian, or what the Trackers who made it their life’s work to find him called Zarim. He’d taken the name Raiff, first name Clay, from a gravestone years before in a town whose name he couldn’t recall. The deceased was about his age and clearly in no position to protest. Back then it had been much easier to build entire identities around little more than that; a trip to the local town hall to obtain a duplicate birth certificate was normally all it took. A thing of the past. Computers had changed the world, all right, making it just about impossible to live off the grid because the grid encompassed everything these days.
Raiff had learned that places like this were the best in which to hide in plain sight. He’d watched the way the regulars regarded him, studying and memorizing it so he’d have a match with any similar looks cast by other strangers who may have come here on his tail. His own personal early-warning system.
Raiff cared little about place and only slightly more about time. As a Guardian, he had one task to perform and one task only. Whether he’d ever actually be called upon and, if so, when and under what circumstances, remained the quandary confronting him every day. He knew only that his mission was crucial to the survival of two worlds, not one, but it was this one that was currently facing the most jeopardy.
Raiff took another sip of whiskey and felt the cell phone vibrate in his pocket. The Watchers were the only ones who had his number and checked in normally on a regular basis. So he thought little of it, as he eased the phone out and up, ready to text back the standard reply when he saw the message was anything but standard.
THE DANCER’S IN THE LIGHT
The code was birthed by a Bruce Springsteen song, “Dancing in the Dark.” For more days and nights than Raiff chose to count, the Watchers would send him the same message, indicating the subject the Guardians were charged with protecting was safe:
THE DANCER’S IN THE DARK
Of course, it hadn’t been a text message at first; that had come later, not quite a decade in the past around the time the Dancer celebrated his eighth birthday. The Watchers didn’t watch him all the time; that would be too risky, given the chance they themselves were being watched. But they watched the boy enough to be certain he was safe, the truth of his being and identity secure. Anytime when they weren’t certain, a Guardian got the call. Not always Raiff, not even most of the time. Back then there hadn’t been any Trackers yet. Or, if there were, they’d yet to begin their murderous purge.
Raiff knew the crazed man who was their leader, at least from sight. All crazy men were dangerous, but the ones with the resources to back up their twisted thoughts and visions promised the worst peril. When the Trackers first surfaced, and both Guardians and Watchers found themselves targeted for summary execution, it quickly became clear that they had a new and equally dangerous enemy. A man committed to eradicating them at all costs, with no sense that he might well be laying the groundwork for the destruction of his own world in the process.
Langston Marsh.
And now the work of Marsh’s minions had left Raiff as the only Guardian still standing, placing the responsibility for Dancer’s continued well-being squarely with him.
THE DANCER’S IN THE LIGHT
Raiff was regarding that message again when he spotted the figures in the mirror glass.
35
THE MEMORY ROOM
“I CALL THIS MY Memory Room,” Langston Marsh told Rathman, his voice echoing slightly in the larger confines of the sprawling space that looked like an exhibit hall.
He noticed that the big man had a round, soft-looking face. A baby’s face riding atop a hulk’s body, save for neat, thin red lines crisscrossing both cheeks that looked like nail impressions. Four on each side as if someone had dug all their fingers home at once, clawing at him