Read Online Revolution No. 9 by Neil McMahon - Free Book Online Page A

we just did with our bodies,” he murmured to Circe. He played gently with the damp strands of hair that curled down her neck, stroking her hypnotically, coaxing her to relax against him. “I want you to open up like you never have before. Make yourself bare, and let me in.”
    â€œI don’t know how.” Her voice was muffled, a little frightened.
    â€œI’ll show you. Just don’t fight me.”
    Freeboot had learned a long time ago, using LSD, that he could separate a part of his mind from the rest—like a tentacle, like a snake—and send it into other minds. The younger and more stoned they were, the easier it was. It was like opening the door to somebody’s living room and seeing them sitting on the couch watching TV, so wrapped up in it, they’d forgotten where they were. There were several screens, broadcasting the different channels of thoughts,memories, feelings, everything that went on in their heads.
    Feelings were the most important. They were what ruled. Freeboot could see them, beaming out from that TV set—fear, hate, love, doubt, all the pressures that built up in people’s lives, mixing together to push them into what they did and said.
    And he knew how to push those feelings. He didn’t know how he knew, he just did. He shone his energy, his power, on the ones he wanted—love for the women, aggression for the men, jacking up fear in a maquis who was getting cocky or devotion in a bride who was restless.
    When he went back out that door and closed it again, they didn’t know what had happened, didn’t even know that he’d been in there. But that energy he pumped in was him . As those feelings got stronger, Freeboot was the hidden essence of them, like oxygen in air. Every breath they took contained him.
    When he finished with Circe, she was trembling a little.
    â€œThat was good,” he said. “You’re going to be a sweet bride. But one thing you got to understand—some of the other girls are going to be jealous of you. You have to keep yourself above that.”
    â€œOkay,” she breathed.
    â€œGood girl.” He petted her once more, then stood. “I’ve got to step out a while. Go ahead and toke up some more of that hash. I’ll be back.”
    He pulled on his jeans, then took a money clip from his pocket and laid five one-hundred-dollar bills beside her on the bed.
    â€œWhen you get back to town, buy yourself something pretty,” he said. Devotion might be a matter of the spirit, but it rolled more smoothly on wheels well greased with things that could be touched.
    Circe got up, too, and slid luxuriantly into the stone bath.Lying back, with the clear water rippling over her young body, she was a luscious sight.
    â€œFreeboot?” she said. Her face was childlike with seriousness. “Can you make me stop dreaming about flunking out of high school?”
    He grinned. “Don’t worry, baby. Pretty soon you won’t even remember it.”

5
    M onks’s shackles were locked around his ankles, with an eighteen-inch chain connecting them, like a slave would have worn. The chain was locked again to a cable bolted to the floor, giving him just enough slack to move around the room. He’d had to take off his boots to put them on. They weren’t tight enough to hurt, but they weighed. He wondered where you would find something like that these days. A specialty shop. Or maybe on e-Bay.
    There was no window he could see out of to watch the sky, no way to tell the time, but he guessed that it was around three A.M. by now. He and Mandrake had been alone for the past couple of hours. He had thought about trying to escape, but the shackles cut off any hope, and it was clear that the camp was being guarded. Ludicrous as this bunch might seem—adopting the term maquis , for Christ’s sake, the sterling French resistance fighters of World War Two—they were at least organized.