The currents arching around Carter went on for a moment then stopped, his body falling to the ground, still spasming. Bobby moved to sit beside him, ignoring the nauseating smell of burnt hair and flesh. His senses telling him that his friend was alive, if only just barely. Bobby looked up from Carter’s prone form to see Elizabeth bow her head and look away, clenching and unclenching her fists. “I know you don’t understand, Bobby, but this has to be done,” she began, her shoulders slumping.
“Then make me understand. I thought we were all planning on leaving together, but you just took off.” Bobby began to focus his energy, like he did back in Utah, chaining his wild rage, focusing the energy he had taken from others.
Elizabeth continued, her eyes flashing with sparks of blue electricity, her hair moving as if it were alive. “Michael tried to recruit me for his nightmare and it backfired! He showed me the parts of his plans already in motion, and I couldn't afford to waste time. Millions across the globe are going to die if I don’t destroy what's buried deep in this place. I must stop it here and now,” she said.
“I saw, like in Utah, the crystals. But this isn’t some barren desert; millions of people live in this city. Are you going to destroy their lives over a possibility?” Closing his eyes, Bobby slowly released a trickle of energy into Carter's body, not wanting to weaken himself like he did last time.
“It was more than a possibility,” she shouted. “Somehow he was able to show me the future. One possible future where billions will die if I don’t destroy this island.” Bobby breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Carter's skin begin to return to its normal color, his chest rising and falling with steady breaths.
“Elizabeth, I know you. You’ve never hurt anyone in your life…and now you're just gonna kill three million people. Have you lost your mind?”
Her eyes flashed dangerously, webs of electricity dancing among her fingers. “You're one to talk after what happened at Blackwood.”
Bobby sucked in a breath like he’d been slapped, his face red with anger. He stood to his full height, balling his fists. When he spoke, it was slow, controlled, though, only by a hair's breadth. “It was an accident. I wasn’t in control, and you know that,” he said glaring at her. “You’re fully aware what you’re doing. It will kill thousands, if not millions, and if you do it, you’ll be the monster.”
“You're the damn monster, Bobby. I knew it from the day we met. I should have listened to what Father Gary told me about you. What kind of person you were, but I thought I could fix you.”
“What in God's name are you talking about!” he shouted, his heart racing.
She turned away, pounding her fists against her thighs, her voice shrieking like the wind. “I saw you! I didn’t want to believe it!” she said shuddering.
His heart fell, not knowing what to say. He thought he was so smart, so careful. “What did you see?” he asked in a whisper, already knowing the answer. Wanting to hear it from her.
“I saw you with him, Lieutenant Young’s son, the boy, Ariel, in the gym.”
Her words struck him like one of her bolts of lightning, his head spinning with disbelief. “Nothing happened!” he screamed, grabbing her shoulder to face him. “I never touched him; I swear to God. Ask him. There's got to be security footage somewhere.”
Elizabeth pushed him away, nostrils flaring. “What about the boy at Trinity, Father Gary said—”
“Fuck Father Gary and his bullshit!” he said, turning away from her and scrubbing a hand across his eyes. “I told him about the boy in confessional, about my thoughts, what I wanted to do. I never acted on it.”
“But you wanted to?”
Bobby was quiet for a long time, not wanting to say it out loud. Saying it out loud would make it true. “Yes,” he whispered, his temples pounding like a hammer. He turned back to face her, his entire body shaking like an exposed nerve, terrified of what she would say.
“You're sick,” she said finally, wrapping her arms around herself, the look of disgust on her face telling him what she thought of him.
“So, I get branded with a scarlet letter even if I didn’t do anything. I’m a monster even if the villagers are safe!”
Elizabeth shrugged, her dark eyes winter cold. “What happens the day you can’t fight it anymore? What happens when you break?”
He threw up his hands, looking up at the night sky. “You know that day we met, when Father Gary beat me within an inch of my life. I asked God for a sign that I could endure, that I would never do such a horrible thing,” he said, leveling a finger at her. “He gave me you! The minute I finished praying you appeared. You saved me, and crazy enough, over time you liked me! You gave me the strength to be a better man, to not fall prey to my demons. The dream of life with you is what kept me going.”
“If this has proven anything to me, it's that I can’t save your soul Bobby. I want a partner, not a hound I have to keep on a leash. I don’t want to spend my life with you wracked with worry and paranoia of what could happen,” she said. “So it doesn’t really matter in the end. All I know is I have to finish what I started, so this is goodbye I guess.” Tall arcs of blue electricity flared around her, forcing him back. Elizabeth began to rise, the deep hum of electrical energy dampening out all other sound. In a panic, Bobby raised a hand to strike out at her, torrents of dark energy forming around his hand, when abruptly she stopped midair, her eyebrows narrowing in confusion. Just beneath her Carter had grabbed her ankle. His friend held on for dear life, his face a mask of pain as thousands of volts poured into him, sparking wildly in all directions. With the flick of her wrist a jagged bolt of lightning fell from a clear sky, striking Carter with enough force to break his grip and sending him careening far behind them.
“No!” he screamed. In a rage Bobby struck out, dozens of thin black tendrils snaking out from his outstretched hand, plunging into Elizabeth’s chest. For once he held nothing back, letting the full force of his will consume her without mercy, love forgotten. He blanched in horror and ecstasy as waves of power flooded his body, the power of the storm she called down filling him to the point of bursting. They floated there for a few moments, locked in a strange dance, swaying back and forth for all the world to see. Then as if some sort of damn had broken, her skin, pink and pale faded to the color of ash, the bright spark of life in her dark eyes dimmed to a dull black. In a heartbeat she disintegrated, her body turning to dust and drifting away on the wind until his arms were empty and he was alone.
With a start Bobby came back to himself. Breaking into a run he stumbled along in the dark over the frozen terrain in search of Carter, fear and worry driving him on. When he found what was left of the pilot, he covered his mouth and nose to ward off the smell of burnt flesh, his eyes narrowing in disgust at what little there was left of him after Elizabeth’s attack. Bobby fell numbly to the ground beside the blackened corpse, his body trembling with shock from the consequences of what he’d done, everything that he’d lost in such a short time. He broke down, his mind racing to the future that he now faced, it was laid bare before him and he could see every twist and turn. What would stop him now, knowing what he was, knowing what he would become now that hope was lost, he wept at the innocence lost, he wept until he had no more tears.
Chapter 23: The Blackwood Incident.
(Author note: This chapter does also appear in Ascension: Book One of The Children of the Spear. I have included it here for story consistency. If you have already read that book, feel free to skip ahead. Thanks for your understanding.)
2061
The world of Charleston was a storm of blue and red lights, the inky black of night banished by the glare of emergency vehicles, the moon and stars obscured by a heavy pall of choking ash and smoke. The normally quiet town was a riot of screams and sirens.
From the moment we landed the people surrounded us, eyes wide and mouths agape, trembling hands reaching out to touch and feel, quickly pulling back, marveling that we were real.
We did our
best to endure their stares and petty questions. Michael, our leader, stood head and shoulders above them looking down kindly at those encircling him, his deep-set eyes full of warmth, his brilliant smile putting everyone at ease. They parted for us, grateful we had come to save them.
“Bobby, can we do this in time? How many soldiers? Parishioners?” asked Michael, gently pushing his way through the crowd of onlookers.
Slowing his pace, Bobby opened his senses to the goings-on in the burning building. He could feel every soul trapped in the complex, knew if they were man or woman, living or dead. He could distinguish each defiant soldier from each frightened child as easily as he could his hand from his foot. It was a strange ability, beginning not long after his change—subtle at first, like knowing who was about to enter a room, or knowing who was on the other end of a call before picking up. Distance never seemed to matter. It grew stronger with time, almost to the point of madness. As it progressed, he could soon tell where everyone in a building was, if someone had a bum knee or was coming down with a cold. It had taken many painful months, but he learned to control it, to block out all the noise. Better still, he could focus. “It's like they said: Sunday mass at the biggest church in the country. Just over fifty thousand souls present, a handful of soldiers, more dead than I can count,” he finished with a whisper.
Giving him a thankful pat on the shoulder, Michael resumed his slow pace through the masses, lumbering toward the legion of rescuers gathered in the foreground of the burning stadium, a bickering mess of police, firefighters, and a defiant army major from Fort Charleston all pounding their chests, each man sure they had the means to solve this crisis while in the same breath assigning blame for the failures that brought them here. By the time they arrived at the command center things had reached a boiling point, a shouting match between the three men and the army major having erupted, promising to turn violent immediately, the safety of the souls in danger forgotten in place of ego.
“Enough!” shouted Michael, elbowing his way between the arguing men, easily casting them aside like small children. “I have been ordered by the state to take command here.”
The three men, who a moment before, had been at one another’s throats, saw a threat to their authority and immediately put their differences aside, banding together to challenge the man who was to replace them.
Michael stood in the center of them, waiting. The police chief spoke first, a tired-looking, dark-skinned man whose thinning hair and paunchy belly told the story of too much time behind a desk. Bobby could feel his weariness, his old heart sluggishly pumping, the result of multiple heart attacks and too many cigarettes. The chief grimaced as he took a swig from the coffee in his hand. “What is this, Halloween? We ain’t got no candy for ya. Get yer ass outta here, boy. How the hell did you kids get past the line anyway?” he said, giving them a withering look.
Not saying a word, Michael reached into one of the many pockets in his long crimson coat, the gold cross on his chest and down his sleeves reflecting purple in the emergency lights.
Removing several small tablets from the breast pocket, he handed orders to each of the men in turn, then crossed his long arms against his thin chest, waiting. Bobby watched their defiance fade away as their eyes darted across the screens, each of them visibly paling the longer they read. When they were done, there were slow nods and mumbled apologies, looks of shame rippling through the group.
Finally, Michael stood face-to-face with the major from Fort Charleston, arms crossed and simply waiting. Watching the two of them, Bobby could see the poor man was at his wits’ end, his eyes red rimmed, his whole body like a frayed rope about snap from overuse.
“I don’t care who you are,” said the major, suddenly breaking, the hysteria growing with each word. “Those are my men in there, and they are simply asking for their due. They have families to take care of, responsibilities. They served with distinction and honor—they deserve better than this!”
Bobby saw the major’s eyes narrow as Michael put his hands on the man’s shoulders, gently removing the golden oak leaves pinned there. The major’s face went pale as Michael crushed the leaves in his hands before letting the small pieces of tin fall to the floor. “They’re not your men anymore. More importantly, after the vile acts committed today, they’re not even soldiers anymore. You are relieved, sir.”
Bobby wrinkled his nose, frowning as the former major fell to the floor scrambling after the worthless pieces of tin, wondering how such a man could have risen so high.
Turning to face the remaining two men, Michael began, “These are my people, and if they give you an order, I expect it to be followed as if I gave it myself.” He began waving a hand toward them. “Elizabeth, my second-in-command, will be running things out here. Andrew, Bobby, and I will breach the church in the next few minutes. There will be casualties, so civilians will need immediate medical support once we give the all clear. I expect full cooperation from everyone—understood?”
The police chief shrugged, handing the orders back to Michael, his lips twisting into a smirk. “Andrew, Bobby, Betty-fuckin’-Sue,” he said, followed by a short bark of a laugh. “Shouldn’t you people have some fancy names to go along with your ridiculous costumes?”
Bobby smiled at the mockery. Lieutenant Young was old enough to remember the Golden Age of Comic Books from generations gone by and had given them code names to be used with the public, silly things they quickly discarded, only relevant on a computer screen somewhere. Michael was supposed to be “Lightstar,” Elizabeth was called “Stormrage,” Andrew was “Vortex,” and lastly, they had assigned Bobby the most uninspiring name of them all: “Vision.” As a group, they had all decided to ignore him, their frowns and hand wringing enough to put the matter to rest.
A shouting match between the police chief and Michael brought Bobby’s attention back to the present. The small dark-skinned man was wagging his finger at the lot of them, his nasally tone beyond condescending. “How in Sam Hill are you four going to stop highly trained, fully armed, decorated army servicemen? That whole place is wired to blow, and the man in charge in there says he has enough explosives to take down the whole building. You clowns are going to get people killed.”
Listening to the old policeman’s harsh tone, a line formed in the center of Bobby’s forehead as his eyebrows drew together, and as he brushed a hand across the stubble on his face, he fought the urge to crush the old policeman's weak heart for his attitude.
For the first time in his young life, he took pride in how he looked. The red-and-gold uniforms were a thing of beauty: formfitting crimson coats, red with gold epaulets at the shoulder, golden crosses over their hearts, a wide black belt at the waist, straight-legged pants, and finishing into knee-high, black leather boots. The look was regal, professional.
“People have already died, sir; more than you would care to admit to the press. We’re just here to clean up your mess,” said Michael, shrugging off the police chief’s insults. Taking a step back, he raised his hands, and a storm of amber light unexpectedly appeared, cascading over his body in a halo so bright it muted the blue and red strobing from the emergency vehicles. The light moved like a living thing, suddenly taking the shape of wings on his back wider than a man was tall. “Tell their leader we are sending in a negotiator, and that he will be alone. We will try to keep casualties to a minimum,” said Michael, looking skyward. “Bobby says there are more than a dozen soldiers on the roof. Liz, I need you to get up there, put out the fires, kill their electricity, and remove those soldiers from play.”
The police chief sputtered in disbelief, shaking his head back and forth. “How the hell are you clowns gonna—”
“Easily done, Michael,” said the Elizabeth, acknowledging orders with a slight bow of her head. Before anything further could be said, she extended her arms upward, a look of divine wonder flickering across her features, thin lips turned up in a secret smile. Bobby could feel it before it actually happened, a drop in pressure,
the wind stilling. Then without warning they were knocked back by a jet of hot air that hurled her skyward faster than he could blink. As she vanished into the night sky, Bobby could see flashes of lightning in her wake, chasing her across the dark clouds, the night swiftly turned to day as thunder echoed from the heavens. They held their breath as dozens of lightning strikes kissed the roof of the building, covering the roof in a cascading shower of sparks and overloading the transformer on the side of the building, casting the entire area into darkness. Then the heavens opened and a deluge of rain, fat and heavy, pummeled them, drowning the flames.
Blinking away the afterimage of the sudden storm, Bobby flinched as Michael’s amber glow spread out to encompass Andrew and himself, flickering wings of golden energy emerging on each of their backs, lifting them gracefully above the awestruck crowd. They hung there for a moment, burning amber wings spreading wide, taking them higher and higher before surging off to save those who could be saved, leaving a trail of light in their wake.
***
Blackwood Church was once the stadium for the South Carolina Panthers, until they had moved out of state. It had retained much of the original layout, with a large oval ring of main and upper deck surrounding a gridiron. The church had converted center field into the main stage, encompassed by floor seating for those wealthy enough to pay for the main floor, the outer ring having changed very little from the original stadium, with only a touch of padding and a place for prayer books indicating that it was a house of worship. From outside, Bobby had sensed that the commanding officer had forced most of the hostages onto the stage and field, placing soldiers evenly spaced around the oval to control entry and exits.
Cutting through a maintenance hatch near the roof, they descended into the darkened arena, touching down silently on a suspended walkway high above that granted them an unencumbered view of the entire area. What they could see was mostly dark, with small pools of emergency lighting scattered across the arena. On the main stage they had gathered the high-profile hostages, the leader of the ministry along with his wife and children. Even from this height Bobby could see the commanding officer pacing, railing at the minister and his family, pointing to a collapsed portion of the stadium west of the stage where his men were frantically digging through the rubble. He could sense bodies trapped in small pockets of the fallen church: men, women, and children whose only crime was standing in the wrong place.
Children of the Spear (Novella): Origin Page 12
