The Minus Faction: Episode Two: Crossfire

By Rick Wayne

In Episode Two . . . Xana Jace keeps her head down, which isn't easy when you stand seven feet eight inches tall. She works the night shift and stays out of trouble, striving only to be reunited with her son.

But she's running out of time. The strange disease that compels her body to grow also threatens to choke her heart.

When a masked gangster terrorizes the small community that shelters her, Xana is left with a terrible choice and just twenty-four hours to discover the truth that everything she believes is a lie.
"The pacing is perfection." -goodreads reviewer

"The writing is intense and vivid... I'm once again thoroughly intrigued." - amazon reviewer

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rick Wayne
• Release date: Sep 30, 2014

Rick Wayne

Rick Wayne is a cretinous mass who's dissected a cadaver, climbed the Great Wall, jumped from an airplane, designed sampling systems, swam naked in the Mediterranean, and felt the blast of a terrorist's bomb, although not in that order. When he's not vomiting words, he's planning his next adventure. He can be found at RickWayne.com.

Book preview

Contents

Title Page

Countdown

T Minus: 038 Days 18 Hours 24 Minutes 51 Seconds

T Minus: 038 Days 14 Hours 55 Minutes 12 Seconds

T Minus: 038 Days 13 Hours 13 Minutes 23 Seconds

T Minus: 038 Days 12 Hours 58 Minutes 44 Seconds

Illustration - Dia de los Muertos

T Minus: 038 Days 09 Hours 27 Minutes 05 Seconds

T Minus: 038 Days 03 Hours 09 Minutes 56 Seconds

T Minus: 037 Days 14 Hours 39 Minutes 37 Seconds

T Minus: 037 Days 10 Hours 17 Minutes 28 Seconds

T Minus: 037 Days 06 Hours 45 Minutes 39 Seconds

T Minus: 036 Days 15 Hours 36 Minutes 10 Seconds

T Minus: 036 Days 13 Hours 12 Minutes 11 Seconds

Illustration - Xana!

Continue the Adventure

Sneak Preview of Episode 3: Meltdown

Credits

T Minus: 038 Days 18 Hours 24 Minutes 51 Seconds

The Disemboweler stroked the child's head and smiled from under his severed mask. He had cut it in an arc under the cheeks to reveal his mouth and the tip of his nose. It obscured everything else but his eyes, which were black and soulless. Like a shark's.

The mask was reptilian—once a crocodile or snake—but its painted green scales were dirty and scuffed at the ridges. Like its owner, it was disfigured beyond recognition. It was a horror strapped to the man's head by a cracked and frayed leather belt.

There, there, he told the little girl.

Her white eyes shone up at him. Her skin was jet black. She clutched a striped short-haired cat.

See? No need to be scared. The big man squatted next to the pigtailed child. He held her arm with one hand and took the cat with the other. He lifted it and the two beasts stared at each other. What's his name?

The girl didn't answer. She was terrified, as were all the residents of Figtree Cove. They stared in silence from under the bagassa trees or fanned themselves under the equatorial sun. Only the insects chattered. Boraro the Disemboweler had earned his epithet thrice-over—at least—and no one dared challenge him, not even to spare an innocent.

Boraro, still squatting, stroked the cat and addressed the dozen or so members of his audience. We are looking for Xana Jace.

Everyone knew we meant Mama Enecio, almost certainly watching from behind the tinted glass of the Mercedes idling on the dirt road. Mama was a big woman and kept to air conditioning. Three more of her men stood around the car. They held machetes and stakes.

No one spoke.

Boraro smiled again at the child. His dark eyes danced under the mask as he stroked her best friend. Do you know Xana?

The child nodded.

Do you know where she is?

The girl shook her head. She stared at her purring pet and looked as though she were about to cry.

Boraro sneered. He disliked children. They were loud and unreasonable. Only good for one thing. And it wasn't time for that.

Yet.

He waved his hand for her to leave and she ran across the dirt and grass to her mother, who waited in front of their dilapidated shack. Of the seven so-called houses that rimmed the cove, two were leaning so heavily as to be uninhabitable. The water behind them filled a deep depression in the ground, runoff gathered from a tributary of the Demerara River. Figtree Cove was nearly dry for three months of the year, a muddy depression that fed flies and mosquitoes. The rest of the time it served as bath, fishing hole, and irrigation well for the tiny community.

Boraro stood tall in the sun still holding the lazy feline. The man's dry, scaly brown skin was covered in fine black hairs. He wore a plain t-shirt and work pants. His long legs ended in mud-caked boots. His heavy arms sprouted from his shoulders and bulged like twisted-steel cables. His hands made fists like club heads.

I have a message. I want you to give it to the freak Xana. He rubbed his fingers back and forth over the cat's ears. The animal closed its eyes. Tell her I will face her tomorrow under the noon sun. One on one. In the junkyard by the Dutch market. Tell her, if she does not come . . . He swept his hand across the scene. We will burn every one of these houses to the ground.

The crowd stayed silent.

Tell her she cannot run. Tell her. The Disemboweler grabbed the cat's head and twisted. The animal squealed and went silent. The crowd gasped. The little girl hid her face in her mother's faded dress. The woman put a hand on her daughter but said nothing.

Boraro ripped the cat's skull from its body. Strips of torn skin stretched like taffy. He tipped the head over his open mouth as if drinking from a coconut. He swallowed blood. A dribble ran down his throat. He tossed the head to the dust and yanked the cat's fur to reveal its muscle-covered ribcage. Boraro cracked it with bulging arms and pulled out the animal's heart. It looked like a juicy plum in his fat fingers. He tossed the carcass to the ground and took a bite from the organ. Red liquid squirted and drained over his fingers like juice. Many in the crowd turned away.

The masked man chewed. His reptilian cowl moved up and down with each clench of his jaw. Then he motioned his men forward. They walked toward the closest shack and everyone saw. Those weren't stakes in their hands. They were torches.

No! A skinny, shirtless man stepped forward.

One of Mama Enecio's men knocked him down and kicked him as another lit a gasoline-soaked torch with his Zippo and tossed it into the closest shack.

The skinny man put his face in the dirt and covered his head to hide the sobs. Everyone else watched as flames rose and surrounded the door frame.

Boraro swallowed the last of the heart and wiped his hands back and forth on his pants. He watched the flames grow. Dry, sunbaked wood crackled and snapped. In moments, the shack was an inferno.

Noon, the Disemboweler repeated. Or I will come back hungry. He waved to the little girl. Then he turned with the others, walked to the car, and drove away.

T Minus: 038 Days 14 Hours 55 Minutes 12 Seconds

It was a protest, or what passed for one in Georgetown.

Xana watched from the cover of shade as the reporter, the American, left the crowd loitering in front of Royal House and trotted across the street. Abby something. That was her name. She stood out, with her lean figure and pale skin, but she moved among the Afro-Guyanese men with confidence. They'd never accost a white woman.

Hand-lettered signs rested against palm trees or lay on the ground while their owners smoked and sat and waited for an audience. Everything was quiet, but Xana knew that would change. As soon as someone important appeared, the men would jump to their feet and hoot and holler, as if called to cue by an invisible director. Even the uniformed policeman resting on the concrete barrier, a lighter-skinned Indo-Guyanese, would leap up and join the show. He'd drop his cigarette and jostle with loose arms, pretending to hold the crowd at bay.

And the American would turn it into news, just like she'd done to Xana. The Goliath of Guyana.

Xana watched Abby approach through the vacant lot across from Royal House. Someone had staked a No Dumping sign to the ground, a stab through the heart of the refuse that had gathered in defiance. Flies milled in a lazy caricature of the demonstration across the street. The South American sun burrowed into everything from above.

Abby stopped at the narrow grove at the back and covered her eyes with one hand. She had bony cheeks, a long nose, and sharp brown eyes that matched her shoulder-length hair. You're a hard woman to find. Her thin lips barely covered a mouth full of big teeth. Once straightened by braces, they had started to slip crooked. She tried to find Xana's face in the shadows of the trees, but it was too high and the shade too dark.

A breeze rustled the branches.

Xana Jace stood seven feet eight inches tall. To most of the people who knew her, she was a nuisance. To everyone else, a monster. Certainly she looked the part, with a heavy brow, a stout jaw, and a thundering gait.

She wiped her hands on her heavy work pants and looked across the vacant lot. There was no way around the crowd. She stepped from the shade.

Abby moved a second hand to her forehead. She'd forgotten about the afro. Here for the big show?

Please don't talk to me. A hot wind whipped Xana's tangled curls in front of her eyes. Her wild hair was all that remained of the scrawny, wide-eyed girl of her youth. It was several shades lighter than her medium-brown skin, and striking. It had turned a few heads. Before. Xana pulled it back and affixed it into a bushy tail.

Abby looked down. How's the foot?

Xana stepped away, revealing a slight limp. Her right foot was mangled, and she hid it inside her custom-ordered heavy work boots. It's fine. Please leave me alone.

I'm not your enemy, you know. The American followed her past the pile of trash. Flies bolted and returned.

That doesn't make you my friend.

I never said I was your friend.

Xana spoke without turning. Yes, you did.

"I didn't think people would respond to the