Free Kingdom of the Seven by Jon Land

smile was not among them.
    “Our roles have reversed, Blainey. The counselor has become the counseled.”
    “It’s just that I know what it feels like, Indian. I was there too, remember? Just a different place. For me the reality check came in London … .”
    McCracken, of course, was referring to the most infamous incident of his career. Back in 1980 the tempers of some very mean hijackers at Heathrow Airport were left to smolder while British officials argued and the Special Air Service twiddled their thumbs in sight of the tarmac. Blaine was working with the SAS at the time and was lying prone next to the commander when the plane turned into a fireball. No one was ever sure whether it occurred out of accident or exasperation over another deadline passing. The point was it happened, and the entire planeload of hostages was senselessly lost.
    Blaine took out his frustration for the way the whole episode had been botched on Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square. Specifically, he shot out the section of it he was convinced the British were lacking. The incident won him instant ostracism and the nickname “McCracken-balls.” The nickname stuck for good, the ostracism for only five years.
    “If they hadn’t buried me in France, Indian,” Blaine confessed, “I probably would have walked. Difference is,
if I had walked on my own, I’m not sure I would’ve ever come back.”
    “I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t called upon me, Blainey.”
    “But getting out for a time made both of us see things clearer, for what they really are. We came back in, we weren’t doing it for the same reasons as before.”
    “For ourselves, then?”
    “For those who matter. We don’t cut into El-Salarabi’s network, how many people die when Bloomingdale’s becomes a parking lot? There’s a lot of shit in the world, Indian. Difference is, we used to be part of it. Now we sweep it aside.”
    “Like I said,” Johnny followed, smile even tighter, “for ourselves. We are hunters, Blainey, preying on the vermin which thin the herd while the shepherds sleep. For us, the hunt is everything.”
    “Better hope we haven’t lost the scent, Indian,” McCracken said, thinking of the force behind Earvin Early and the list of names Sal Belamo would soon be going to work on, “because this might be the most important one yet.”
    “Judgment Day, Blainey.”
    “Not if we can help it.”
     
    Earvin Early sat huddled against the building, knees tucked against his chest. The name of the building, he did not know. The name of the city did not matter. They were all the same; interchangeable pieces in a puzzle he cared nothing about.
    Early shifted his great bulk, twirled his canvas coat tighter against him to provide further obscurity. Not that he needed to.
    He could, after all, make himself invisible. He could do lots of things if he really put his mind to it. Could go places just by closing his eyes, anywhere he wanted. Do anything he wanted when he got there.
    Earvin Early lived in his mind. The body was nothing to
him; a ragged shell the only purpose of which was to shroud the vast temple of his being. For this reason a bath for Early consisted of being caught in a downpour. He liked the stink that rose from his soiled clothes and frame because it kept him in touch with his physical self. So did the pain rising off the boils and open festering sores that dotted his face, neck, and shoulders. The pain kept him from slipping away permanently into one of the worlds his mind created.
    Early suddenly saw rats rushing down the sidewalk, clustering around him, rising on their hind legs and sniffing at him. Early reached out to pet a few and they nuzzled against his fingers, purring. Early blinked his eyes.
    The rats were gone.
    He saw lots of things that didn’t last very long. Long ago he had stopped trying to figure which was real-world real and which was the product of his mind that could do anything. Instead he just assumed everything was