Chapter 2: The Blood Revelation
The Civic’s engine hummed a steady, modern rhythm against Mordecai’s silence. Nevada drove, her hands slick on the wheel, every nerve screaming that she had a nuclear reactor in her passenger seat—one that was quietly studying a fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview.
“What is its purpose?” he asked, not taking his eyes off it.
“It’s… decoration. It doesn’t do anything.”
“A trivial totem.” He sounded vaguely disappointed.
They reached the outskirts of town. The Quick-Mart was a blister of light in the darkness. A few cars were parked at the pumps. “Pull in here,” Mordecai said. It wasn’t a request.
She swung into the lot, killing the engine. The sudden quiet was filled by the distant buzz of the store’s signage. He got out, moving with that same unsettling grace, and stood on the asphalt, head tilted back.
He was looking at the streetlights. Not at their glow, but at the source—the plastic casings, the metal poles rooted in concrete. He walked toward one, Nevada scrambling out to follow.
“Mordecai, maybe we shouldn’t—”
He placed a palm flat against the cool steel of the pole. He closed his eyes. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor ran up the pole; the light above them flickered, then burned twice as bright, a harsh white glare that made Nevada flinch, before settling back to its dull orange.
“It’s hollow,” he murmured. “The energy is… corded. Like a rivulet diverted through a lead pipe. Efficient. Soulless.” He opened his eyes and looked at the store. “This is a place of trade?”
“It’s a gas station. You buy snacks. Fuel for the car.”
“A nexus of sustenance and motion. Show me.”
She led him inside, the electronic door chime jingling with brutal cheer. The clerk, a pimply kid named Chad glued to his phone, didn’t even look up.
Mordecai stopped just inside. The fluorescent lights reflected in his wide, blue eyes. The rows of brightly colored plastic, the coolers humming, the spinning rack of cheap sunglasses, the glossy magazine covers—it was a sensory avalanche. He walked to a cooler, pulled open the glass door, and felt the blast of cold air. He let it wash over his face, a reverence in the gesture.
He reached in and pulled out a blue can of energy drink.