Dead Man's Hand (25 page)

“Excellent.” 
Alexis exclaimed as he clapped his hands together before turning around, ready
to leave.  After he took a few steps I was ready to call out to him, but
before I could he seemed to remember that I was still frozen in place and he
spun around.  When he turned he looked straight into my eyes and I saw
just how harsh they were.  And with a voice that was even harsher than his
eyes he asked a question with just a hint of impatience.  “Well, are you
coming?”  Without waiting for my response he spun around and walked out.

Now while I
certainly had no right to be furious with Alexis for this little stunt, I was.
  He had immobilized me with his forgery, though I was beginning to
think he could perform genuine magic since he had never touched anything. 
I was about to scream at him about my current state when I realized that he had
silenced me again.  And to me at least, that gave me two very real and
valid reasons to be angry with him.  When I thought about it logically I
knew he was within his rights as I had just tried to assassinate him.  But
since he was going to get the last laugh, seeing that he was going to be my
executioner, I guess I figured that he should be nice to me while he left me
alive.

Since I
couldn’t do much else I stood there watching his retreating form and when he
rounded the corner, I realized that I had moved my head to watch him vanish. 
That was when I began testing just how much I could move.  But before I
could try much of anything else I felt a solid pull, like I was a resistant dog
on a leash being dragged along behind his master.  I wanted to swear and
curse at Alexis but I swallowed my initial reaction and considered my
situation.  As I hurriedly moved to lessen the slack in the invisible
leash I decided that I was getting a lesson in humility, which was fair
considering the circumstances.  So I bit my lower lip and I hustled to keep
up with Alexis.

As I ran out
of the house I was hoping I would be able to avoid any more tugs when I noticed
that Alexis was already sitting in his truck, a truck that was already pulling
out of the driveway.  Scared that Alexis had just decided to execute me, I
ran as fast as I could towards the truck.  The last thing I wanted to
happen right now was to be dragged to death. When I was close enough I jumped
into the truck’s bed and, fortunately for me, that happened just as Alexis took
off down the road.

When I landed
on the truck’s bed my heart was pumping so hard that adrenaline flooded
throughout my body, making it rather difficult for me to take stock of any
injuries.  As I gave myself that quick once over I was shocked to discover
that I must have twisted my ankle while trying to catch up to the truck. 
I was so distracted by my examination that I failed to notice the headset that
fell at my feet from the back of the cab.  Truthfully the only reason I
noticed it at all was because it flew into my head.  My eyes widened as I
saw it hovering in front of my eyes.  I hesitantly picked it up and placed
it up to my ear and, despite everything that had happened, I was actually
shocked to hear Alexis’ voice coming out of the receiver.

“It’s about
time.  Now I know you’re probably a little mad about the rough treatment
but I’m not going to apologize for it.  I’m sure you can understand that
I’m only willing to trust you so far, hence the gag and the leash.  But
just so you don’t get the wrong idea you were never in danger of being dragged
to death, and don’t bother trying to lie to me or yourself, it defeats the
purpose of what you’re trying to do.  I know you were worried about it
because everyone I put through that stunt is, and you’re certainly no
exception.”

Stunt? That
was just a stunt?  He hadn’t intended to drag me?
  If that was true then Alexis certainly knew how to motivate
people. 
Wait a second, did he say “everyone he put through this?” 
How many people has Alexis done this to?
 As I was trying to process
that piece of information he continued to speak to me as if he had been
speaking about a trip to the grocery store.  “Now I’m fairly certain you
don’t know where Dempsey lives.  But I’ve been wrong a time or two before
so if this happens to be one of those times just nod your head.”

As I was
trying to convince him that he should stay my execution I figured honesty would
be in my best interest.  Besides, this would be a very stupid thing to lie
about as he would quickly discover my deception. I shook my head. “I figured
that, fortunately for you I do know where he lives.  I just never had a
reason to bother with him until now.  He has no idea what I am capable of,
which is probably one of the reasons he was hoping someone like you could kill
me.  To be honest, I was perfectly willing to just leave him alone for the
most part.  However now I’m going to make him wish you two had never met.
Before you have a conniption fit, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do
exactly, but the most likely scenario is that I’m just going to pull him out of
his house.  And since that’ll take me all of a minute or two I’ll just
leave you in the bed of my truck.  So I’m going to tie your leash to my
truck to ensure your safety, as well as your continued presence.  I’m
sorry if that bruises your ego, but that isn’t my concern.  For now just
sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery.”

With that the
headset was ripped from my hand and pulled back through the wall of the cab,
once more leaving me in silence.  Letting my head sink as far as it could
I began thinking that I have definitely been in worse spots, for instance
waking up in Dempsey’s
freezer.
  But instead of
watching the sights as Alexis suggested I set my mind to work on what I had
seen, or more accurately, felt him do with his “forging” as he called it.

How had he
managed to stop the bullet?  That feat had been on my short list before I
ever entered Alexis’ home and witnessed him do it.  Now that I knew it
could be done I was desperate to learn how it worked.  Before today I had
never given the problem a lot of thought. Before today I had never
needed
to give it a lot of thought.  Now, I certainly knew just how useful it
could be.

As I started
trying to unravel the puzzle at hand, I couldn’t help thinking of Kevlar. 
But the problem with that was Kevlar, while it certainly would provide
protection from bullets, offered little to no protection from bladed objects or
arrows.  No, if I was going to tackle this issue I wouldn’t rest until I
found something that would protect me from everything, well most
everything.  I had briefly thought about layering my protection, Kevlar in
conjunction with something else, but that just seemed too unwieldy.  Whatever
the solution was I knew Alexis had cracked it; he had a more complete, maybe
even a totally complete form of protection, and he didn’t need body armor to
achieve it. 
So how did he do it?

I just needed
time to piece everything together. I took a deep breath and replayed the
assassination attempt in my mind.  After I had pulled the trigger I
watched the bullet fly through the air until it came within a few feet of his
head, where it stopped. 
What had he done to stop it like that?
 Was it even done through forging?
  Then I thought about how he
had managed to hogtie me so quickly and completely.  
Could the answer
for both be related in some way?
  At no time tonight had Alexis
actually touched me, he was never even close enough until I was already
secured. Even then he had been careful not to touch me, almost as if he thought
I was diseased or something.

Was he trying
to show off his superiority with forgery?
 
Scratch that, he was clearly superior to me, there was no need for a
show.  But there had also been no line of sight, so how had he located me
so quickly?  I rubbed my wrists as the memory of my binding washed over
me.  Neither my bonds nor whatever stopped the bullet were visible, it was
as if he had wrapped them up with nothing but air.
Wait, could the answer really
be that simple?  Is it even possible?
I almost laughed as I thought of
the simple solution. 
Had Alexis somehow managed to learn how to forge
air?

I considered
the possibility. Air was technically made up of molecules just like everything
else.  But I had always thought they weren’t dense enough to manipulate.
 
Did he manage to do it by dealing with one molecule of air at a
time?  Is this how he had managed to affect things at a distance?
 
Air does connect everything together. 
Could it really be that simple?
 
No!  It had to be something else; there was no way the answer could be
that easy.

But what if
it is?
  After all, the best magic tricks
were always deceptively simple.  It was a rule of the universe, the more
complicated you tried to make something, the more spectacular the inevitable
failure. 
Am I right?
  I had to test my theory. I concentrated
on my left hand and pictured a marble, about the size of a dime that was made
entirely out of air, condensed air.  But when I tried to fuel the
transformation nothing happened. 
What am I missing?

Before I
could try again the truck pulled to a stop.  Did the two of them live that
close together or had I just been so absorbed with the puzzle that I hadn’t
noticed how much time had passed?  As I tried to stand I abruptly came to
the end of my leash and stumbled ungracefully back into a sitting
position. 
How did he manage to fix my leash like that while driving?
Wait, dumb question. Apparently, he could do anything.  

With every
passing second I was truly beginning to learn just how little I actually knew
about forging. Until a couple hours ago, I hadn’t even known it had a name. I
had to try to find a way to convince Alexis to not only spare my life but also
to teach me what he knew.  I finally started to look around and was only
able to see a handful of houses.  None of which were terribly close to
each other, but more importantly, I saw no sign of Alexis. 
He isn’t in
the cab, did he move to the front of the truck?

Either way
there was no use trying to search for anything in this blackness Alexis would
come to me in his own time. Instead, I refocused on the other issue. 
What
did I do wrong?
  Normally when I tried to transmute something I just
had to focus on what my intended result was, but that hadn’t worked.  Was
working with something as sparse as air so different?  I was not trying to
change something into something else, well not really.  I was trying to
take the air, something I couldn’t see, and manipulate it.  When I thought
about it I realized that I sounded a lot like a blind man trying to perform
surgery.

So this time,
instead of focusing on my goal, I focused on my starting point, a single
molecule of air.  From there layering on another piece of air, and then
another piece of air, and another, until I held a small marble of air in my
hand, at least in my mind I held one.  I was just about to power that
transformation when I received a fairly strong shove, which naturally broke my
concentration, as Alexis said, “Hey boy…”

As I opened
my eyes I whipped my head around and saw Alexis looming over me.  I was a
little aggravated at the interruption so I interrupted him, “Would you please
not call me boy.  I do have a name you know.”

With a shake
of his head Alexis responded, “Not yet you don’t. Boy.”  His tone brooked
no argument so I didn’t start one.  Instead I listened to him, “Like I
told you earlier, I’m going to leave you in the truck, is that clear?”

I knew that I
should have just said,
“yes, sir.”
 That was what I should have
said, but I didn’t.  I guess it was because he had interrupted me before I
could finish my test.  I was still ignorant as to how he had managed to do
what he had done to me and I was unable to restrain my curiosity.  “You
use air, don’t you?”

“Excuse
me?”  Alexis asked, apparently puzzled by the change of topic.

This is what
I really wanted to talk about at the moment so I took his question as
permission to continue. “In order to protect yourself and when you restrained
me, you were using the air?”

While Alexis
hid his reaction fairly well I had just finished playing poker with some pretty
good talent and there was no comparison between the two.  I was
right.  Leaning down to me he whispered, “How did you come to that
conclusion?” I simply stared into his eyes and refused to back down.  When
he saw that I wasn’t fooled by his poker face it melted into a look of
astonishment.

Cracking a
smile for the first time since winning the tournament I responded as straightly
as I could, “You didn’t answer my question Alexis.”

Nodding his
head Alexis replied with a voice that was as inflated as he could manage. 
“You’re right, I didn’t answer your question. At least not directly.  And
that’s more than I’m willing to give you at the moment.  You’re still
staying here while I go in and retrieve Dempsey.”

“Whatever you
say, only,” I hesitated for a second before rushing on.  “Could you take
this harness off of me?”  The astonishment instantly dried up and his
glare regained its full affect, but I refused to back down from it.  I
knew that, eventually, the glare would crack me so I offered a compromise of
sorts, “If I’m not here when you get back I’ll willingly let you execute
me.” 
What am I thinking making that kind of an offer?

I guess that
his lie detecting eyes saw the truth in my words because he slowly began to nod
his head. “I’ll hold you to that promise, boy.”

With that he
turned around and walked back towards the cab.  When I stood up to watch
Alexis as he walked towards Dempsey’s home I found that he was already gone. 
It was as if he had just disappeared.  Now that was truly
impressive.  Questions ran through my mind as I wondered where he was and
how he would get in and out of Dempsey’s home. But the thoughts vanished from
my mind as I lowered myself back onto the truck’s bed and realized that I had
been standing up, the harness had been taken away.