Again, he gave me that wary stare. I could tell he still thought I was crazy, but this time, he was certain. I flicked the lighter and held it under the picture again. I touched it there, then pulled away, then did it again. Finally, I held it there for ten long seconds, then I let the lighter go out. I held the picture under McKesson’s nose.
“There,” I said, “see? It’s an object. That’s why it survived the wreck, my burned house—everything.”
McKesson’s eyes traveled from me to the picture and back again. “Maybe it has a coating, or something.”
“No, no, man,” I said. I grabbed the picture again and tried to rip it in half. This act was relatively easy now, as I no longer believed I could damage the picture. The paper flexed and folded, but didn’t tear. It was like the strongest plastic I’d ever tried to rip.
“You see?” I asked him. “It’s an object. Like your watch. They can’t be destroyed.”
“Who told you that?” he asked. He stared at me like I was some kind of homeless junkie talking about my secret invisible friends. Was it possible he didn’t know all that much about the objects in general?
“Let me show you,” I said coldly, putting the picture against his shoulder. I was tired of people telling me I was crazy. I knew what I knew. I aimed my gun at the picture and made sure there were no organs behind the spot.
“What the fuck are you—” he began.
I pulled the trigger. Inside the enclosed car, the bang was deafening, followed instantly by the sound of the bullet ricocheting and a weird cracking noise. I’d angled the gun so the ricochet wouldn’t hit me, but the moment after I did it, I realized it had been a dumb, impulsive move.
McKesson roared in pain, twisting around.
“You shot me. I can’t believe it. You shot me.”
“Calm down. You’re not hit, and the bullet could’ve just as easily hit me. And look…”
I held the picture up. It was perfect. There wasn’t even a crease. McKesson stared. He looked down at his shoulder. There was no hole—no blood.
“Where’d the bullet go?”
I pointed to the windshield. There was a new star of shattered glass there, right in front of his face.
“It bounced off the picture then punched through the glass. You’ll have a bruise, but you’ll be fine.”
McKesson stared at me, fear battling with anger. Then, finally, he broke into laughter. It was the laughter of a man reprieved. “You’re crazy,” he said, but there was a look almost like admiration on his face.
I shrugged. “I just have nothing left to lose.”
“You know how much a windshield costs?” McKesson asked, shaking his head and nursing his shoulder.
“So you believe me now?” I said.
“Yeah, but you didn’t have to shoot me.”
“Remember those two dry clicks?” I asked him. “Now we’re even.”
We glared at each other quietly for a second.
“Those dry clicks were a cop’s reflex,” he said finally.
“I’ve felt the same urge. But now we have to work together.”
“So how many damned objects do you have?”
“One too many. I don’t know what this picture does, but I know it was the one I started with.”
McKesson eyed me. “I’ll give you some new information about these things.”
“What?”
“Uncuff me, and I’ll tell you.”
I thought about it, and then nodded. “Truce, though, right? No more guns?”
“OK, Scout’s honor.”
I didn’t trust him worth a damn, and I didn’t think he’d ever been a Scout, but I figured we were even now. I put my gun in my pocket and released him. I watched him warily, expecting to get punched. He rubbed his wrists and his bruised shoulder.
“No wonder the perps hate cuffs,” he muttered.
“Do you have something to tell me, or was that bullshit?” I asked.
“I don’t know that much. I only have one, and I know how to use it. Most of the time, I try to avoid them, or eliminate them, or return them to their powerful owners. That’s my job. I’m a peacekeeper and for that, the Community likes me and gives me—special considerations.”
“Go on.”
“The objects are all trouble. Every one of them will give you bad luck in the end, and using them is like bad karma. The main reason for this is they tend to attract one another. Power draws power to itself—no one I’ve talked to knows why. That’s one reason why you’ll tend to meet people with only one object. The more objects you have, the more bad things tend to be attracted to you. Like gravity.”
“I don’t follow,” I said, although it sounded a lot like what Jenna had told me before. “You should still run into people with more than one object. I mean, if they attract one another, then someone is bound to mug someone else and have two objects.”
“Right. But the thing is, those people usually end up dead—really fast.”