by Chris Cooper
“One down. How many more to go?” she asked as she wiped the blood off the dagger and handed it back to Anna, who looked as though she was about to vomit.
“He had it coming,” Ruby said. “Now, help me down.” She held up her burn-spotted arms.
Oliver and Asher helped her off the table, but her legs fell out from under her as soon as her feet hit the floor.
She grunted in frustration as she tried to push herself back up.
“Why didn’t he kill you when he had the chance?” Oliver asked.
“They wanted to see if the magic would regenerate on its own.” She pushed up off the ground and, with Oliver and Asher bracing her, balanced herself. She resembled a newborn fawn just learning to walk, legs wobbling as she took a few cautious steps.
“They were using me as a guinea pig—give me a little time to recover then try to squeeze more power out of me. That way, they’d have a better understanding of how it worked.”
“Did it come back?” Oliver asked. “Your power, I mean.”
“Does it look like it came back?” she spat. Then her gaze softened. “I’m sorry. No. I heard them talking. If it didn’t work, they were going to try Asher’s blood on me. They must still have a supply from The Parlor.”
“They put the gem in one of the monkey jars from the show and fueled it with Asher’s blood. Something about it gave the gem enough power to cast an illusion over the entire town.”
“Near immortality and infinite power—no wonder he’s so hell-bent on getting Asher,” Anna said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“How will we get home? We can’t turn the train around. We’re in the middle of an industrial park,” Oliver replied.
“There have to be cars around, right? How else would they have gotten here?” Asher approached the body of the fallen henchman and checked his pockets. “See?” He held up a key chain with a car key dangling on the end.
“If we let the Collector weasel out of this, he’ll be back, and we might not be so lucky next time. We have to find him and make sure he doesn’t walk away free.” Oliver pulled the lighter from his pocket. “We’ve got real fire. All the Collector has are illusions.”
“And probably guns,” Anna added. “And the last time you used that thing to defend yourself, you set your arm on fire and went into shock.”
He patted his pocket. “I still have a few vials of blood, just in case, but I think I’ve got a better grip on how it works. And maybe we could solve two problems at once, but it means we’d have to split up. If you and I go find the Collector, Asher and Ruby can go find our getaway vehicle.”
Asher’s eyes widened. “We can’t leave you.”
“I think he’s right,” Anna replied. “It’s foolish for all of us to go together, especially with Ruby in the state she’s in.”
“I can hear you, you know.” Ruby gestured for Oliver and Asher to let go, and she took a few more practice steps across the room. “Do I need to remind you what I did with the dagger?” She gestured toward the man on the floor.
“It’s a good plan,” Oliver replied. “If things go poorly, at least we’ve got a shot at getting away if the car’s out front.”
“Feel up to driving?” Asher asked Ruby. “I’ve never done it before.”
“I may be weak, but I’m not an invalid.” She smirked.
“Ruby can keep the dagger. Just give me something blunt, and I’ll come out swinging.” Asher scanned the room and picked up an old metal pipe from a stack in the corner of the room.
“Sure you want to come with me?” Oliver asked Anna.
“We beat the Witch together, and we can do the same with the Collector,” she replied.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “Without a doubt.”
They entered the hallway and walked back toward the basement staircase.
“There’s an open window in the boiler room,” Asher said. “We should be able to climb out into the back storage yard.” He turned to Oliver. “We’ll meet you out front.”
“If we’re not out by sunrise or someone else finds you, leave without us,” Oliver replied.
Asher hesitated.
“Better that two of us get out alive than none of us,” Oliver said.
Asher nodded. “Be careful.”
After a few goodbyes, Asher and Ruby descended the staircase to the boiler room.
Oliver and Anna stood for a moment, just the two of them in the desolate hallway filled with boxes and old junk.
Oliver handed Anna his gun blade. “Take this.” He unstrapped its leather belt and gave it to her. “Just click a hammer back and aim it at the thing you want to die. If that fails, stab them with the pointy end.” He smirked.
“What about you?”
“The lighter should be more than enough.”
“I hope you’re right,” Anna said as they walked down the hallway.
“Right about what?”
“That we’ll get through this,” she said.
The hallway led to the main warehouse, dumping them out along the front wall of the massive room. Oliver listened intently, but the place was quiet, aside from a mechanical hum vibrating through the building.
Several crates hid them from view as they crept along the wall under a tall set of stairs leading to a mezzanine level.
Oliver squeezed between two of the crates to get a look into the main room. Tall industrial warehouse shelves lined the room, stretching up to the metal roof. Heavy-looking crates lined some shelves, while others held filing boxes stacked atop each other.
The door at the top of the steps squealed open, and Oliver pressed himself against the wall underneath.
“I don’t know what he’s doing. The lazy idiot’s probably off napping again. I’ll go find him.” The henchman’s boots clanged against the metal stairs as he descended.
Although Oliver doubted he’d be heard over the warehouse’s industrial white noise, he held his breath and watched through the slits in the metal steps. When the henchman reached the concrete floor, he walked in front of the crates and toward the hallway from which Oliver and Anna had come.
Oliver wasn’t sure what to do. Burning the man alive seemed too brutal of a punishment although Ruby had surprised them all with her use of the dagger.
Once the man passed through the door to the hallway, Oliver gestured for Anna to follow. He crept toward the doorway and peered inside. He’s going to find the body. Oliver’s pulse quickened. Figuring two sets of feet would be more easily detected than one, he gestured for Anna to wait at the end of the hallway.
Oliver noticed an old caster sitting atop a stack of cardboard boxes. He picked it up quietly and held in a yelp as the rough edge of the metal wheel sent a jagged splinter into his index finger.
The man turned toward the closed door of the room that once held Ruby strapped to the gurney. They hadn’t bothered to hide the body, which lay slumped next to it.
As the man opened the door, Oliver rushed in on his tiptoes.
“Jesus,” the man said.
Before he could reach the body, Oliver cracked him in the head with the heavy wheel. The henchman toppled like a bowling pin, falling face-first onto the floor.
Anna ran down the hall to help.
“Help me get him onto the gurney,” he said.
They dragged the man by his arms and lifted him onto the table with a clumsy heave. They strapped his arms and legs tightly, and Oliver found an old rag to serve as an impromptu gag.
Anna stood back. “Is he dead? He’s not moving.”
Oliver noticed the subtle rise and fall of the man’s chest. “No, see?” He pointed. “Thank God.”
They crept down the hallway and back toward the main warehouse. As Oliver rounded the staircase, Anna followed closely behind. They reached the halfway point, but as the staircase turned in the other direction, the Collector was standing there, waiting for them.
“Brave of you to follow me here. Foolish, but brave.” He
rested one hand on the metal railing and held the jar containing the crystal in the other.
“I much prefer the lighter,” he said. “This… Well, I still don’t quite understand how it works. Fire is simple. Point and shoot.” He laughed and made a finger gun, firing it in Oliver’s direction. “Don’t even have to have good aim.”
“It isn’t yours to use,” Oliver said. “It belongs to Ruby.”
“Oh, how rude of me. I suggest you come up and take it, then,” he said with a wide grin.
“Your men are dead. There’s no one left to protect you.”
“Those men were overpaid anyway.” He held the specimen jar in his hands, and the gem bounced against the glass. “This is all I need. A world full of special abilities, and all I’m gifted with is a wimpy alter ego. But this changes things.”
The Collector stared into the gem, and the stairs beneath Oliver’s feet shifted. He and Anna grabbed the railing and stumbled down to the concrete floor.
Once Oliver had regained his balance, he looked up at the Collector, on the mezzanine. “There’s a big difference between the magic in the gem and the magic in the lighter.”
“Oh?” The Collector feigned surprise.
“What the lighter can do is real.” Oliver pulled it from his pocket and held it up.
The Collector hid his surprise behind a scoff. “So you found it. Thanks for bringing it back to me.”
He raised an arm and aimed toward the metal roof. The water pipes overhead pulled loose from the ceiling and slithered like large metal snakes, spewing water from their mouths.
Anna turned to run, but Oliver grabbed her by the arm.
“Parlor tricks, remember?” he said. He stood his ground as the pipes descended.
Anna gripped his shoulder, her fingers trembling, and he flicked the flint wheel and sent a short burst of flame in the Collector’s direction. His hand burned, but the pain stopped at his wrist.
The crash of glass was followed by a shout from the top of the mezzanine, and the ceiling and pipes of the building had returned to their proper places.
As flames consumed the room at the top of the stairs, iridescent blood poured out the doorway and through the metal floor grates of the mezzanine, running down the wall in long glowing streaks.
The Collector rushed inside. His screams weren’t those of pain—he was angry. Flames licked the edges of the broken office window as they spread deeper inside. Plumes of fire-extinguisher smoke billowed out the broken window as the Collector tried to control the fire inside.
“What have you done?” he yelled, emerging from the staircase with the specimen jar tucked under one arm and a staff in the other hand.
The man descended the long metal staircase, stopped midway, and set the jar down.
“Haven’t had time to practice with this one, but I think you’ll enjoy it. I was hoping to keep my warehouse in one piece, but you’re not giving me much of a choice,” the Collector said as he raised the staff.
“Oliver!” Anna shouted as she pointed at the ceiling above him.
An industrial ceiling fan came crashing down.
This isn’t an illusion.
Oliver rolled to one side as a blade narrowly missed his leg.
The storage shelves around them tumbled, cascading toward them like rows of falling dominoes, with the sound of heavy metal and wooden crates crashing into heaps of twisted metal and debris. He and Anna raced toward the front of the room. The Collector had fallen backward against the wall, seemingly overcome by the blowback from the staff.
As they dodged the last of the falling shelves, Oliver prepared to strike again. He lifted his hand and put his thumb to the flint wheel, but his hand froze, paralyzed by some invisible force.
The Collector leaned against the railing and trembled as he lifted Oliver from the ground with his telekinetic grip. “I’ll tear you apart!” he screamed.
Oliver felt the invisible force tugging his limbs in opposite directions. Just as he was sure his wrist would pop, a shot rang out from below, breaking the Collector’s concentration and releasing Oliver.
As Oliver fell, he let out a clumsy burst of flame from his fingertips.
The Collector dodged but fell headfirst down the second half of the metal staircase, tumbling until he came to rest on the concrete floor.
Oliver landed hard and rolled an ankle.
The burst ignited a puddle of grease under the staircase and sped to a nearby shelf. The flames quickly climbed to stacks of boxes and crates.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Anna said as she tucked the smoking gun blade under her arm and helped Oliver to his feet.
The Collector’s form lay obscured by flame and smoke, but Oliver couldn’t bring himself to leave the man—or, more importantly, the innocent woman deep down inside.
“We can’t just let him die here.” He pressed a sleeve up against his mouth, trying to filter out the smoke, but his eyes still stung.
As they passed the staircase, Oliver noticed the crumpled form on the floor. The Collector had been replaced, once again, by the woman, collapsed against a steel beam.
“Help me!” he shouted.
He knelt next to the woman and shook her, trying to wake her. She lay limp, so he slapped her lightly on a cheek.
“Hey, come on,” he said. “We gotta go.”
She jerked awake and looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time.
“We have to go,” he repeated in loud staccato syllables.
He and Anna propped her up until she recovered enough to walk on her own.
“I have to find the gem,” Oliver said.
He left Anna with the woman while he searched the stairs.
In the blast's chaos, the specimen jar must have fallen from the stairs and shattered on the floor, leaving splatters of blood and broken glass where it fell. Fortunately, the gem remained intact.
They led the woman through the warehouse toward the large doors on the other side, but a wall of flame stood in their way. So they turned toward the door under the stairs of the mezzanine, where they had ambushed one of the henchmen.
They passed into the hallway, but smoke had formed a wall of black as it billowed through the doorway.
They rushed down the hall until they came to the room with the metal gurney. As soon as the man strapped to the table saw them, he began cursing and struggling to pull himself free.
As Oliver grabbed the metal handle next to the man’s head, the man spat in Oliver’s direction. “I’ll kill you when I get out of this,” he said.
Oliver let go of the gurney. “I can leave you here if you’d prefer.”
The man laid his head back on the metal table. “No, take me with you.”
“Thought so,” Oliver said. “Is there another way out of here?”
“Down the hallway next to the basement door. That’ll lead you to the front.”
“Perfect,” Oliver replied.
He and Anna pushed the gurney down the hall, toward the front of the building, while the woman followed close behind.
When they reached the front door, the woman tugged at Oliver’s arm. He tried to guide her through, but she pulled away.
“What are you doing? Come on!” he shouted.
“He’ll just come back. He always comes back,” she said, stepping back into the building.
“There are people who can help you. We can help you.”
“They’ve tried to help me,” she said, tears streaking her soot-covered face. “He’ll win, and this is the only way I can stop him for good.” She stepped farther back into the building.
“No!” Oliver shouted as he reached out for her.
“It’s better this way.” Before Oliver could stop her, she slammed the door and ran down the hall toward the blaze. He watched her through the window as she disappeared into the wall of smoke.
“We have to go,” Anna said.
“We can’t leave her!” He gripped the door handle and yanked, but the door
was locked tight.
“It’s too late for her.”
The fire reached the hallway and worked its way along the walls.
“We can’t save her!” Anna shouted.
Her words pulled Oliver out of his temporary daze.
“Let’s go.” He hobbled toward the front steps, towing the gurney and letting it bounce awkwardly down the stairs.
Ruby and Asher were waiting on the crumbled asphalt road in front of the building, leaning against an old compact car and visibly shaken by the conflagration.
“Are you all right?” Ruby asked as she rushed over.
“Fine,” Oliver replied.
They stood in front of the mammoth warehouse and watched the building burn as Oliver pulled a vial from his pocket and poured it over his burned hand.
Oliver handed the gem to Ruby. “I think this belongs to you.”
Ruby’s eyes glistened in the firelight. “You found it.” She flipped the gem over in her hand then set it on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Oliver asked.
“Help me find a rock,” she replied.
Oliver obliged and found a broken chunk of concrete sitting next to the warehouse steps.
Ruby knelt and held out her hand for the concrete. She struggled to lift it over her head, focusing on the gem.
“Do you need help?” he asked.
“I have to do it,” she replied.
The first swing was a miss as she struck the edge of the gem and sent it skittering across the pavement. After she sighed and shuffled over, she lifted the rock once more and brought it down square in the center of the clear stone, cracking its surface. Light beams broke through the crack, reminding Oliver of the Briarwood barrier breaking. She lifted the chunk of concrete a final time and brought it down hard, shattering the stone. A burst of light consumed her, illuminating her pale form while somehow failing to spread to her surroundings.
As the others stood and watched, she breathed deeply, each breath drawing more light into her body until little remained but a faint afterglow.
“This feels amazing!” she said, still glowing like the luminescent Santa Izzy had placed in the yard the year before.
They watched as the fire reached the pallets in the back of the warehouse and towering flames licked the sky.
