stopped short, little baby pinpricks that made him wince more in fear than in pain. But finally he worked up the nerve, plunged the needle into a vein.
The rush was almost instantaneous. Back arched, Mike squeezed his eyes shut, falling into the flood of images pouring across the blackness. He felt his body shudder once, twice, three times, and then he reopened his eyes.
“Mike?”
He turned to look at Simone, reached out and touched her face. “Jesus. You’re beautiful.” He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, hard, then grinned and opened the door. “Gotta go,” he said brightly. “Got me a murderer to catch.”
This time the Line had nothing on him. There was no added weight of years, no sense of desperation and sadness fell over him. He had a bounce in his step, felt stronger and more alive than he had even as yesterday’s fresh-faced rookie.
He was also seeing weird shit float by his eyes every once in a while, but with a little bit of focus he was able to mostly ignore that. It wasn’t too hard. The feeling of youth and vitality was enough that he didn’t even care about the hallucinations; he was able to concentrate on just feeling great.
There was nobody around on the Templeton side of the Line. Nobody liked to come too near it if they could manage, so this was no surprise. It was raining lightly on this side as well, a drizzle that melded into the Line and quickly soaked him to the skin.
It didn’t matter. Mike started off towards his destination, feeling young again.
After a few blocks the rain began to let up, and soon Mike noticed that he was being followed. A bunch of kids, twenty or more, the youngest only about six, the oldest in his teens. Mike waved to them, but there was no response. They just followed along, faces blank, apparently intent on keeping up.
The police tape was still across the door at the apothecary. He pulled it away and opened the door, flicked on the lights and stepped in. The kids stayed outside, still watching through the windows.
He had no idea what the hell he was looking for. He started with the garbage can beside the counter, saw that Jim and his forensic crew hadn’t touched it. Out went the contents onto the counter top, papers and empty packages and, yes, two cigarette butts.
“It’ll be the package with the green lettering,” came a voice behind him.
“Sonofabitch!” yelled Mike, jumping in the air and spinning around. “Don’t do that! My heart’s racing fast enough as it is, without you sneaking up on me like that.”
Danny lit up a smoke, pointed the cigarette at the box he was referring to. “It’s kind of a sedative, kind of a hypnotic. I can’t remember everything Sandy told me about it, but it worked pretty good. Best the stupid fucker could do was lift his hands in the air and cry like a baby.”
The rush from the drug left Mike’s system then, just drained right out and through his feet to the floor, it felt like. Now he felt fear and an almost unbearable grief, ice in his veins and a cold knot in his stomach, and his hands were shaking. He tucked them in his pockets. Hell of a comedown this drug gave.
Mike tried to talk, his voice caught. He tried again. “You did kill him.”
Danny nodded. “Hell, yeah. Him and his kid-fucking buddies, coming across the Line with their safe new drug, screwing little girls and little boys.”
“So tell us. Let the law deal with this.”
“I am the law.” Danny blew a puff of smoke into the air. “Don’t you remember?”
“The law doesn’t execute people without a trial, Danny. Not on either side of the Line.”
His former partner walked over and with a hop pulled himself up to sit on the counter. Mike flinched back, then steadied himself; they were now eye level with each other. “This wasn’t an execution, Mike, this was a warning shot. Already, all the pedos who are in on this are thinking twice about coming across the Line.”
Mike thought back to sitting in the car, just before he’d injected the Slow into his system. “I think I saw two thinking about coming across just before I came in, standing at the corner and then buggering off when we showed up. Doesn’t sound like it’s working.”
“Oh, it’s working all right. Just needs a little more time to get through all the thick skulls