"He is el Diablo," the man insisted, grabbing his shirt. His rheumy eyes were pleading.
"In that case, I've got a date with the devil," Remo said evenly. He pulled away from the surprisingly powerful grip.
As he headed up the road toward the saloon, the old man made a rapid sign of the cross. Afterward, he hurried back to the safety of his ramshackle home. To drink. And pray.
ROOTE'S HEAD WAS BOWED over the bar, fists clasped at his temples.
Some of his shot glass lay in fragments before him. The endless tapping had eventually grown in ferocity until the thick glass shattered beneath the metal pad of his index finger. He'd swept most of the fragments to the floor.
His charge was low. He'd been taught to recognize the signs. He felt drained. Physically and mentally.
He had loosed too much juice on the pair of MPs. The baked corpses lying on the floor of the saloon were a grisly testament to the horrible power of the force within him. He thought he had held back, but drunkenness and insanity had impaired his judgment. If there ever came a day when he finally climbed off his stool, he'd have to recharge.
An intense silence gripped the desert beyond the bar's clapboard walls. He thought he'd heard the distant sound of a helicopter more than an hour before, but it had been swallowed up in the desert wind. No matter. Even though they hadn't found him yet, they were still looking.
Only a matter of time... Recharge. Had to recharge. Sniffling, Roote lifted his head from his hands.
Only then did he see the reflection in the bottles behind the bar.
Stomach knotting, Roote whirled on his stool. He wasn't alone.
The stranger had somehow gotten inside the saloon without the creak of a single floorboard or the squeak of the half-rusted door hinges.
The intruder had a look of death in his dark eyes. Roote had seen the same expression countless times in the past. Virtually every time he looked in the mirror.
"You're Roote, I assume?" the stranger asked.
"Yes, sir," Roote replied. He wore his eyes at half-mast. His Southern drawl was slurred.
His charge was still low.
Dang! He shouldn't have let it drain so far. It was easy enough to recharge. It was only a matter of finding the nearest electrical source. The outlet behind the bar would have been sufficient. But he had sat morosely at the bar for hours, not even caring that they were looking for him. Now he regretted his apathy.
As the stranger closed in, Roote hoped the limited energy stored in his capacitors would be enough.
Bracing his back against the bar, Roote rubbed his thumbs against his fingertips. Weak blue sparks began to pop inside his palms.
He wouldn't take any chances. He couldn't afford to miss. Roote would let this latest intruder get in close. Then he'd fry him like an egg.
ACROSS THE BIG BAR FLOOR, Remo was trying to figure out what Elizu Roote thought he was doing with his hands.
As he watched the pale man raise his hands up beside his shoulders, images of the old Mexican man's impersonation of the Army private popped unbeckoned into his mind.
And strangest of all, it appeared as if Roote's conjuring was working. There was a sporadic blue flash coming from between his curled fingers. It illuminated the bones in his hands like some weird, palm-size X-ray.
Probably palming a couple of joy buzzers. His unique serial killer's stamp.
That Roote was insane, Remo had little doubt. The bodies of two of the men he had killed still lay on the floor, charred beyond any hope of identification short of dental records. The private must have soaked them in gasoline and burned them alive.
Remo wondered why he would have brought them inside afterward. Obviously they hadn't been killed in the bar. The saloon's bone-dry wood would have gone up like a struck matchstick if he had done it in here.
The two pairs of boot marks were the only evidence Remo did see of any kind of fire residue.
The boot prints were burned into the wood floor. As he walked toward them, the prints seemed almost like a brief map to some macabre dance step.
When he looked up, he saw that Roote was smiling proudly. He nodded to the footprints.
"They died with their boots on," he said. He was still leaning against the bar, rubbing his fingertips on his palms.
Remo kept coming.
There was a strange tingle of electricity in the air. It seemed to be coming from Roote's direction, though Remo couldn't determine the source.
"It ain't really my fault," Roote speculated. "The Army's what made me a monster."
That was enough for Remo. Roote was just another kook who wanted to blame his training for everything wrong in his life. Not my fault. The Army told me to kill. The devil made me do it. An old argument.
"You-all are here to arrest me, I suppose," Roote said as Remo closed in.
Eyes flat, Remo shook his head. "We're way beyond that. Just for the record, how many people have you killed?"
"Today or all told?" Roote asked with a proud smile.
Remo's dead expression didn't change. "Does the term 'you just sealed your fate' have any meaning to you?"
Roote began slapping his fingertips in unison against his palms. The soft clapping sound was accompanied by an increased sparking.
"You don't have no gun," Elizu Roote said. He sounded a little disappointed. "How about handcuffs?"
Remo was past the bodies now. Nearly upon Roote. "Don't use either. Don't need either."
"That's a cryin' shame. Metal conducts best." It was a puzzling thing to say. And between the kid at the airport and General Chesterfield, Remo had already wasted enough time on nutcases today. It was justice time. He let the remark pass, reaching out a thick-wristed hand to Roote.
He'd do it quick and easy and be on the first flight out of town before the body was even found. Or so he thought.
His hand was a foot away from Roote's throat when the private's palms opened like desert blooms.
Remo caught a brief glimpse of what appeared to be thimbles. But for some reason, they looked as if they were buried at the end of Elizu Roote's fingers. It was also obvious that they were the source of the mysterious sparking.
"Surprise," Roote announced. He grinned maniacally.
There was a pop of light like a flashbulb going off.
The sudden brightness took Remo by surprise. Even as the light was registering on his retinas, Remo felt the shock of electricity grab him in the chest.
The short power surge lifted him off the floor, flinging him back toward the end of the bar. Stools toppled out of his path, spilling over, crashing and rolling against tables.