Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

faces yet another existential crisis that seizes his attention, derails his diet, and sends him back to Munchitos. Is he gay or not gay? Does he hate his boozy mom or love her? Is
The Godfather
the greatest film ever or is it
Citizen Kane
? Ironically, the fact that he’s so obsessive is why he’s devoted to my cause. As I’ve learned, he’s precisely the person to have on my side—smart, loyal, and thoroughly courageous. That’s why he could listen analytically, steeple his fingers, and say, “You were flooded with electricity after believing your family was dead. But in reality, you don’t know if they’re dead or not.”
    “No,” I said. “But there was a moment when I was sure they were, and that the creatures were responsible. Right before cold fury kicks in, I feel scared or threatened, but this was different. It wasn’t a terrible thing that
might
happen to my family . . . it absolutely
had
happened. My love for them morphed into something murderous. It was like, if I loved my dad, mom, and Lou, then I owed it to them to kill the creature.”
    “The subconscious is quite a little taskmaster. It can really drive you nuts.”
    “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned mental instability . . .”
    “Relax. I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re going to the next level.”
    “Next level? Doug, look at me,” I said with shaking hands and a twitchy gaze, perspiring like a melting ice cube. I peeled hair from my face and said, “Does this look like the next level of anything other than pneumonia? I feel like I’m shorting out.”
    “Or maybe you’re coming online,” he said. “Like, say this is a by-product or even an evolution of cold fury. It feels related, doesn’t it?”
    “Yeah. It does.” Instinctively I knew cold fury had to be activated for the electricity to flow. The scary part was that in the grip of the raging ions, I
needed
to kill Teardrop; I’d savored the sensation and felt diminished when it faded. Recalling it now, I licked my lips, wanting to experience it again, while Doug’s mouth moved silently.
    “What . . . what did you say?” I asked, blinking through the haze.
    “I said for your own safety, we should try to understand whatever the hell’s bouncing around inside you. Let’s try an experiment. See if we can kick-start it.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure it’s safe.”
    “Who said science was safe?” He smiled.
    Ten minutes later, I sat in a chair in the middle of the Bird Cage Club’s main room—a round, high-ceiling space encircled by floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the twenty-seventh floor dome of the Currency Exchange Building. When it was a speakeasy long ago, it had been furnished with a bandstand and bar, cocktail tables, roulette tables, and other games of chance. Now the vast room was mostly empty except for a heavy bag I punish daily, a couch where Doug sleeps (with Harry wrapped at his feet), and a large, round platform that looks like the part of a lamp into which a light bulb is screwed—which is exactly what it is, on an oversized scale. During Prohibition, the club signaled to its clientele that it was open for business by flashing a beacon across Chicago. Doug found a bulb at a theatrical prop store that actually fit, but the old fixture still didn’t work.
    Also, there’s the control center.
    It began with a scarred dining room table rescued from a Dumpster. Doug covered it with computers humming with every conceivable tracking software, every accoutrement to aid in the collection and dissemination of information. I added reference books on Chicago history, crime, and architecture. The wall-sized city map with its mysterious stickpins had come from Club Molasses, my family’s other speakeasy located deep below Rispoli & Sons Fancy Pastries, and now hung behind the control center, showing the city as a long, thin jigsaw puzzle of neighborhoods. It was there, high above the city, where Doug and I