Villain (Gone 8)

Dillon walked to the edge of the booth, right up to the window. “Put a spotlight on me.” Into the microphone he said, “You are all my slaves. You are my slave army. You will obey me. Say it. Say you will obey me!”

Thousands of puzzled faces looked up at him. And with one voice, they thundered, “We will obey you!”

“I am the Charmer! I have come to lead you. Rejoice!”

Where the hell he got the word “rejoice,” he would never know. It was some distant holdover from Sunday school. But it pleased him, seemed to give him some new reserve of strength. A sea of faces gazed up at him, most showing UNLV red and black, others in San Jose’s blue and gold, all began yelling happily, as though their team had won.

Rejoicing! Hah!

Incredible. An incredible thing to see, Dillon thought. Too bad Saffron . . . He shrugged off that sad thought—he’d liked her, he’d have liked to sleep with her, but she was replaceable. In fact, he could see several young ladies down below who could replace her.

“So, let me ask you,” Dillon said, his voice echoing off the polished wood floor and bouncing around the high steel rafters, “what’s the difference between a dollar and the San Jose Spartans?” Pause. “You can still get four quarters out of a dollar.”

Roughly a half dozen laughs. Well, it was an old joke, just slightly reworked. And this was a tough audience, scared and confused as they were.

“Anyway, you are my slaves, and I have a job for you. I want you to leave this place and—”

The mob started moving.

“Not yet! Damn! Let me finish my sentence.” He sighed. This whole voice-of-God thing had a steep learning curve. “I want you to leave here, drive or walk to the Strip, and attack anyone you see in uniform. Kill them all. Police, security, anyone in a uniform.”

And with that he dismissed the rest of his “funny but not deadly” vow. Even he couldn’t quite see the humor in the situation, but what was he supposed to do? Just wait to be exterminated?

Thousands of puzzled, troubled faces, all waited.

“Now!” Dillon cried. “Now, my slave army! Go! Kill! Kill!”

Then, reminded of something interesting, he added, “All except the cheerleaders. You stay where you are and I’ll be right down.”

The cheerleaders were seven young women and two young men, college kids dressed in black spandex shorts and tight red tops with the letters UNLV across the front.

Reaching the floor, Dillon winked at them. “You nine are my private personal guard. The Charmers Cheerers.” No, that wasn’t quite right. “The Charmers cheer squad. Never mind. Security!” Three nearby campus cops came at a run. “Give these people your gun belts. Don’t worry, we’ll find enough for everyone!”

“You nine follow me wherever I go, and do whatever I say. Now, let’s get out of here, because a serious shitstorm is about to start.”

The murderous crowd had almost emptied out of the arena, and it occurred to Dillon that he didn’t need to follow them. They had their orders, and if past history was any judge, they’d keep attacking and killing anyone in uniform until Las Vegas was cleansed of cops and casino security.

“I am the king of Las Vegas,” he said, and laughed. Pity about Saffron, but look at me now, he thought. My own squad of hot college girls. Well, and the two guys. He could get rid of them, but he didn’t want to look sexist. Anyway, maybe he’d get them all to do a special cheer for him and do the whole pyramid thing, and he assumed the guys were helpful for that.

&nbs

p; The Charmer’s Chatterers?

The Charmer’s Chaplains?

The Charmer’s Cheerios?

That might be okay. Yeah. He’d try it out with audiences, see if it worked.

With thousands of helpless slaves and with nine cheerleaders, Dillon was starting to recover his confidence. But he had been shaken by Saffron’s murder, and more shaken by Dekka and Armo. But, he told himself, he would never again be caught off guard. The two Rockborn meddlers would have their hands full coping with his thousands of ready killers.

“Someone show me the way to the best VIP box,” Dillon said, clapping his hands. “We are going to party like it’s the end of the world!”

Malik closed his eyes in the back seat, blocking out the wind, blocking out the fear, pushing everything away.

Like meditating.

Like meditating while teetering on the edge of disaster.