Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(3)

But Uncle Tony was dead. He’d died a hero, almost a year ago, now, saving Bruno’s life among many others. He could hear his uncle’s gruff, Marines drill sergeant voice in his head. What’s this? Ya wanna close Tony’s Diner because of, what? Nightmares? Fuckin’ stress? You tired, boy? Fuck tired! Tired’s for pussies! You can rest when you’re dead!

Tony was resting. It was Bruno that couldn’t seem to manage it. Not with the Rudy dreams and Zia Rosa missing in action. Zia had gone haring off a few weeks ago to attend the birth of yet another of the McCloud crowd’s innumerable spawn, expecting Bruno to pick up the slack. Kev was off the hook, because Rosa wanted so badly for him to procreate, and all that sweaty humping took time and effort, right? But Bruno, man. Anything goes. Put that boy to work, day and night. Never mind lost sleep. Never a thought for his own kite and toy business.

Fortunately, his own outfit was a smoothly functioning perpetualmotion machine. One of Bruno’s talents was to pick good staff and motivate them well. Too bad Zia Rosa couldn’t do the same.

But the restaurant was his most visceral link to Tony. God, how he missed the old bastard. Tony had loved the place. Bruno owed Tony his life, several times over. Tony had never closed the joint but for a couple of very notable days; one being the day eighteen years ago that Rudy and his goons had come to the diner to kidnap and murder Bruno. They had not succeeded, thanks to Kev, aka white-hot ninja maniac, and Tony. His uncle had carted the goons away in his pickup to an unknown fate. Or, well. Unknown, maybe, but certainly not un-guessed. It had been a day of blood, terror, and broken glass.

The other day the diner had closed had been the day Tony died. Another day of blood, terror, and broken glass. Bombs and bullets, too.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Thought about in those terms, closing down Tony’s Diner was starting to look like the knell of f*cking doom.

Aw, hell with it. He’d cover at the diner, for as long as it took. He wasn’t sleeping worth a damn anyhow, with Rudy coming at him full bore every night. His sex life was decimated. A guy couldn’t invite lady friends over for erotic frolics when he had an early-morning date with monsters from the depths of his damaged psyche. Real mood-killer, that. Hadn’t seen any betweenthe-sheets action in months now.

Or missed it much, to be honest. Too tired.

He headed into the bathroom, stared at his face over the sink. He looked bad, he noted critically. Reddened eyes, cheeks starting to cave. He’d lost about twenty pounds since the dreams started up again. His head still throbbed, now that the calming spell of the kung fu forms was broken. He yanked open the medicine cabinet, rummaged ’til he found a cluster of prescription bottles, rubber banded together.

He’d gone to a shrink with his problem a few weeks ago. This eerie cocktail of antidepressants, antianxiety meds, and antipsychotics had been the guy’s recommendation. Bruno checked it out on the Internet, discovered that his dose of the antipsychotic was higher than the max recommended dose for schizophrenia patients. Similar to what they were giving Iraq veterans suffering from PTSD after multiple combat tours. He’d made a real impression on that shrink. Possible side effects included, but were by no means limited to: diabetes, weight gain, muscle spasms, slurred speech, disorientation, tremors. And to top it off, some of the vets who took it were dying in their sleep.

Yet here he was, getting out the bottles. Rereading those labels.

No. Aside from possible side effects—like, say, death—he had a creeping sense that if he drove Rudy underground, the guy would really be able to f*ck with him. At least when Rudy was in his face, he could see what he was dealing with. Who knew? He was feeling his way. He wasn’t great at introspection. He liked action. Constant, restless motion.

Don’t think about it. Shine it on. The hole in his belly was deep enough as it was. Just stay shallow, that was the trick. Babblingbrook shallow. He was great at that. Ask any of his ex-girlfriends.

He batted the bottles aside with the back of his hand and kept digging. Found some aspirin, swallowed it dry, and turned on the water to wash that fried look off his face. Maybe he could sneakily do for himself what Kev had done for him years ago. Kev had researched lucid dreaming, speed reading hundreds of books and medical journals. Every night, Kev made him practice kung fu forms in the wide part of the alley out back, behind the diner, practicing stepping back from the cage of monkey. And after, Kev sat next to Bruno’s bed as he went to sleep, helping him visualize Rudy putting down his weapons and fading away. Imagining that booming voice getting softer, until it disappeared.

Then Kev stretched out with a blanket and slept on the floor. And when Bruno had the nightmare, Kev woke him and did it again. Every night, for months. And bit by bit, it started to work. A night would go by, no dream. Then another. Bruno stopped freaking out in school, for the most part. He’d stopped getting straight D’s and F’s. He’d never gotten particularly good at sleep, being hyper by nature, but it was better. And finally, the dreams stopped altogether. He was cured.

Or so he thought, until a couple of months ago.

He could make a recording similar to Kev’s mesmerizing monologue, and hypnotize himself, as Kev had hypnotized him. Problem was, he suspected it was the force of Kev’s will that made the technique work. Kev had been a bulwark by his bed. No one messed with Kev.

But Rudy knew damn well he could mess with Bruno. No lame guided visualization with waves crashing and birds chirping was going to change that. But what could he do? Call Kev, bleating for him to come home, tuck Bruno into bed? Whining to be rescued, like the zinged-out twelve-year-old dingbat he’d been when Kev met him?