“My Daddy is a bad man, he killed people who were good and then pretended he was a God.” It was obvious the girl was reading from a script now, the murderer’s words sounded so out of place in her mouth. “Now I will pay for my Daddy's lies. I have been made a throne of dynamite and I will be put upon it like the princess I always dreamed of being...”
Josiah groaned with disgust, silencing the girl before she could read anymore. “Jessica; could be give the walkie-talkie to the person with you please? I should speak to them; you don’t have to say anything more…”
Everything went quiet again, and he could only wait as the girl was once again taken from the mic. Hartt knew he was walking on a knife edge - if he asked too much Jessica might reveal something she shouldn’t of and then her kidnapper could get angry. A flashing light filled the room for an instant, but Josiah ignored it and when it had died down she was returned.
Her voice was trembling now. Hartt could hear her tears breaking on the plastic. “He said you have heard enough. He's taking me to the throne… he said you have one hour to find me, and if you don't...” She sniffed. “If you don't-”
Then her voice vanished as the walkie-talkie was snatched away and Josiah could just make out her captor’s hands on the plastic as the man pressed the buttons and the line went dead.
Hartt sniffed and turned, heart thudding between his lungs. He slowly replaced the device and faced Michael Prince, who stood impatiently at the doorway. “Evacuate the building.” Josiah muttered.
“I’m sorry?” The board member snorted.
“You heard me.”
“There’s no reason to do anything, we can control this, the girl isn’t important.”
Josiah snarled. “She is the most important thing. Right now, right here, today! So you move from the doorway and get those people out of here!”
He stopped breathlessly, turning back to the room. Hartt had forgotten his position, and he could only gasp with relief as Michael went to obey. Just before he left however, Prince turned back to him, a smirk crinkling his slimy lips.
“You shouldn’t have come here today Josiah Hartt.” He stated simply. “It got my attention.” Then, with a wink of an eye he swung himself around the woodwork and sauntered down the corridor.
The Killers Play Their Card
D ynamite has two phases of explosion. The initial inflicts most the damage. When the chemical reaction at the core of a pound of powder is ignited by the burning of carbon in a spark, a series of gasses expand. This eruption occurs at eight thousand and fifty meters every second, with enough pressure created to rip a whole two feet deep upon a four-tonne impression of granite. A tonne of explosive material would rip the slab of granite upon it apart. Except upon this tonne of dynamite there was no granite. Instead there sat a little girl.
The room was cold, her fingers twitched where they sat, trembling against the paper wrapping that made up her scarlet throne. Jessica Baltazar tried to turn her head, straining against the straps that held her in place - but they were too tight, digging into her shivering skin until she could bear it no more. Her throat was sore from screaming, her eyes red from crying for hours but there was no comfort coming. The hollow ticking rang off the walls, chiming in her ears for every second her heart beat.
Jessica looked down, the only place she could, and saw the little black box resting on her lap. A light flashed slowly back and forth, illuminating the bulb in a swath of gleaming red and then fading back into itself, only the coils still glowing a hot orange. For every chime of the clock the flashing grew faster, and she knew all too well that soon it would flash for a final time.
It wasn't like she understood entirely what was happening to her, and certainly not why, but she knew what was coming. She could feel it pressed against her back. And there was nothing she could do. Her frail arms were bleeding where the leather had been pushed into her skin; every time she writhed she made it worse. So she sat there in silence, waiting, watching the light count down to the final second. All Jessica could hope for was that her mother or father would burst through the door, to hug her tight and pull her out. But she knew it wouldn't be them. The man was coming - he'd promised her that. She just prayed he'd make it in time.
Stone Hall erupted into chaos in an instant. Not on the surface, not in the public eye, but secretly, beneath the crowds and the publicity, calls were being made. It started as Michael Prince alerted one of the guards, and the guards whispered the words to one another. Men leant against walls and dressed all in black picked up their walkie-talkies and slinked out of view to listen. When they returned their every move suddenly seemed more cautious than the last. But not all of the guards could be alerted in time - one of the guests was bound to overhear.
Elton wasn't being discrete as he listened; smoking his cigarette with his head tilted the other way. He just had a taste for gossip, that was all, and with ears as sharp as his it would be a shame to waste an opportunity. But as the news spread he heard uttered the one human word that was certain to send people fleeing.
“Bomb!” Elton screamed as he leapt from the wall, dropping his cigarette in a flourish once he was sure he heard correctly. “Bomb! There's a bomb in the building!” He ran to the center of the room and cupped his hands to shout it.
Then they ran. They all ran.
Screaming; throwing glasses and fans aside in a flash and chasing to the door. The whole hall followed one by one; those who didn’t hear the warning simply running with the others out of fear alone. Perhaps that made it worse.
Women picked up their dresses, snapped their heels and ran. The hall erupted in a wave of sound, screams drowned out screams, people’s mouths wide open with panic as they clambered over one another, diving to the carpet and scrambling for the door. The guards were overwhelmed, swallowed, vanished - the crowds swarmed like a pack of dogs, trampled and crying. The floor shook and the corridors flooded with bodies, each for themselves now as they made their escape.
Lylith White ran into Josiah as he burst from the bedroom, the walkie-talkie still clenched in his palm. His face was distraught, heavy eyes flickering from side to side as the events overcame him.
“What is it, what's happened?” She asked. Seeing him that way scared her. “The guard who spoke to me, he said something about the Patriarch’s daughter?”
“They took her Lylith.” Josiah sighed hopelessly. “They snatched her from her bed while she slept; her mother was just down the corridor when it happened, how could that be?” He looked past her, angrier now, fists clenched. “They snatched a kid Lylith; she wasn't a part of this, she was completely innocent. Just a girl. I mean, as revenge goes this is a master class - it's brutal, it's evil, almost inhuman... There used to be rules but now they’ve taken a child!” He snarled, calming himself before speaking again. “They pulled her from her bed and sat her on the bomb. We have an hour to find out where she is and get her out or else-”
“Well then let's go, let's move!” Lylith exclaimed.
“That’s how they got here in time…” Hartt drawled; his mind unfocussed now the reality had overwhelmed him. “They didn’t have to drag the dynamite across the mountains; they just took her and ran, when none of us were looking…”
“Josiah, come on!” She urged. “You must have some idea where...”
“There's nothing Lylith,” Josiah replied, shaking his head and returning to her again. “I've checked the room over, there's just dust and books... There can only be one of the group left now, two of them paralyzed, lying on the floor in that dungeon underground. That leaves just him...”
“Who?”
“Edgar Mulligan. He’s the one who got her - I know what to look for at least…”
“Edgar? How do you know? He might be one of the ones that got bitten - it might have been the Field Specialist, or that George…?”
Josiah sighed, straightening his jacket. “You'll have to trust me Lylith, I know. Edgar’s taken her and it was all his fault.”
; “Who’s fault?”
“Who do you think? We will find her, if we don’t-” Josiah turned breathlessly to the end of the corridor. A few screams drifted from across the building. “But there's something I need to do first.”
Stone Hall’s main entrance was in chaos. The guards at reception weren't prepared for anything like this - they were experienced men but they’d chosen an easy job at the desk for the last few years of their time, waiting for the day they could at last retire. As the panic grew they were overwhelmed, pushed aside, and shoved to the walls as the crowds stormed past. But the main doors were locked, the keys were in the guard’s pockets so as the men and women fell against the great oak panels they simply refused to budge an inch and the crowds were left trapped there, screaming as the tide built against the them. The fastest men were dragged to the bottom as hundreds slammed against their backs and rammed them to the ground.
The madness was so fluid nobody even blinked as a long coated stranger and his friend stepped through a far off door, having walked round the back route and slipped to the front. Josiah Hartt strolled through the empty spaces before they could be filled and then weaved through the crowds, hands in his pockets as he resisted the tide. He worked his way to the front, removing a mallet from his pocket and, facing forward, slammed it into the wood. The doors, four times the height of himself, shuddered as he drummed against them. A thunderous roar echoed around the oval room and drowned out even the screaming. The crowd fell silent, and slowly the pushing eased.
“Listen to me!” Hartt bellowed, face red as he roared. The great slabs of oak still quivered against the hinges. “There is no bomb; there was, but there's not one now...” A few close to him fell still, but at the beginnings of the corridors some of the stragglers were still fighting. He leant back and roared a final pair of words.
“Shut up!”
With that, at last, everyone stopped; shuffling their feet, the breath of choked men and women restless as they dragged themselves up off the floor, staggering backwards and leaving Josiah Hartt alone at the front.
“Thank you.” He nodded, resting his voice now his audience was listening. A wrinkled woman in front of him nursed her bruised wrists and looked at him with disdain. “Who the hell are you?” She asked sharply.
“Oh I'm nobody, I'm just a stranger, but one you might want to listen to because this is… this is important.” In the corner of his eye his saw the Patriarch arrive with Michael Prince by his side, slinking slowly towards him. “Okay, there is no bomb, it was a dummy,” Josiah continued, projecting his voice as far as he could. “It was a hoax but there's is something in this room… something that is just as lethal and has been here so much longer. A man who lied to everyone and got away with it for a hell of a long time.”
“Who?” A distant voice in the crowd.
“Where were you the 23rd of November eleven years ago?” Hartt asked, changing tact. A few in the crowd began to answer, but Josiah promptly cut them off. “I was in prison,” He raised his voice, booming across the attentive crowd. “Captured at the peak of the war. Some would say I was lucky, if I was still fighting that day I might not be standing here today, because out there, in those 24 hours, even the innocent weren't safe. People who worked in factories - mothers and wives and sisters and daughters torn away from life at the peak of living. They did nothing wrong, they meant no harm - infact they were completely normal. Like you and like me and like your families who work in the mills or in the fields across the country. Except for just one day, eleven years ago, a man decided that people like that were just tools for war. That man executed them - to him it meant just a push of a button but he ended their lives. Officer Cedric Baltazar made a mistake, but to this day his actions live on in the grief of the families of the people that died at his hand. You aren't aware of what happened; I know because he hid and he lied and he manipulated people until they turned away and stopped asking questions. Well those days are over because I'm telling of you now - when you walk into a booth a few months from now and decide which box to tick ask yourself this: do I want a man who did those things controlling us still? Do I want a man like that leading our children? It's your choice now.” He sighed and backed away, leaving the crowd to descend back into chaos, this time not through fear but through revelation as they leered at the man who had led them for so long and who’s lies were now told.
Patriarch Baltazar was speechless, stumbling over to Josiah with his mouth wide open. “You just ordered my execution.” He muttered.
“No. I told them the truth.” Josiah tutted and took Lylith White by the hand. As the buzz of the crowd grew louder he brought his mallet down upon the lock, placed his hand on the wood and pushed.
With a foot already through the door he felt Cedric pulling him back, barely audible over the baying crowd behind him.
“Where are you going?” The Patriarch snarled, a hand on his sleeve.
Josiah shrugged. “To save your daughter.”
Lylith White and Josiah Hartt ran around the building, hand in hand and stood panting against an ivory wall around the corner and out of sight. The night was looming, the moonlight seeping like a silver mist across the darkened sky, illuminating the ridges and spirals of cloud coating the heavens above them. The heath was quiet, a light fluttering of wind shaking the leaves but barely swaying them. It was peaceful. The calm within a storm.
“That's it now then, the Patriarch... Cedric won't survive that surely, not now they know?” Lylith asked.
“Maybe not, but he'll still have loyal supporters, perhaps those who already knew, he can count on them at least... But if I persuaded enough, yes, maybe all this will be worth it.”
“If we find his girl...” She went to ask, “Any thoughts?”
Josiah groaned. “Thoughts but useless ones. Her bedroom was practically empty; there were no traces of soil that could mark a point of the valley, or dampness or leaves. Edgar just wasn't in there long enough to leave a mark; at least not one that could give us a clue to where he was going...”
Lylith smiled at him keenly. “And I think that is where you're going wrong.”
Hartt stopped. “I don't follow...”
“Don't get me wrong, you're good, great in fact... The cleverest man I've ever met, but you are cold, you're clinical. You analyze down to the tiniest fingerprint but you don't think about emotions, how people might think because of them...” He looked at her with confusion, and so she went to explain. “Okay, so put yourself in Edgar’s shoes; he's out for revenge right? He hates Cedric and he wants to see him suffer, just like he did. That's why he took Jessica I presume, because Cedric killed the most important girl in his life and so he's doing the same in return, he's replicating the same emotions all over again, giving the Patriarch a taste of his own medicine. Think about it Josiah... Where did this all begin?”
“Of course!” He exclaimed, leaping off the wall.
“No, but Josiah, it's a couple of miles away at least, we've got about fifty minutes left, we'd barely get there in time...”
“Well...” Josiah shrugged casually. “It depends who you've got as designated driver...”
Ashton Town had crumbled into the river Coon - bricks and girders jutted out from the streaming water and wore them away, the mass of buildings once residing by the channel now long since overwhelmed and demolished by it. The bridge was one of the few things to remain, the way it had dug itself into the river bed made its removal almost impossible. Only one structure had survived the attack; a tiny house perched further down the edge of the river, about to submit itself to the jagged streams of water. Stacked rocks formed its wall, a platter of dull grey tiles lining the crumbling rooftop. Fire had tinged the stone, with a scorched black singeing the cement between them.
Josiah Hartt yanked the wire wrapped around his horse’s mane and it obediently slowed. Lylith sat panting behind him, her every bone aching from the journey they'd just endured. He was indeed an excellent rider, but not especially subtle in his
style. He'd reared the creature up across fields of rocks, dancing through limestone and sometimes toppling over it - yanking the poor creature up a near vertical cliff face and then whipping it to race it back down again. His coat had flapped a few inches from her face the whole time, and only as it fell could she glimpse the wreck before them.
“My god...” She mumbled. “I had no idea it was this bad.”
Josiah leapt off the horse, pointing towards the broken shack and heading towards it. “Come on!” He called back to her. “Let's try over here.”
She managed to retain her dignity and ran to his side as he approached the door. They walked past the shattered bridge and Lylith realized the fine sand that seemed to line the floor around them wasn't sand at all, but debris.
Josiah silenced her with a finger and gently pushed the cracked oak door to. Inside there was nothing but dirt, with a dry mud shaking beneath their feet in the light breeze. There was nothing else in there except a few cobwebs in the corners, hanging off the rocks. The roof was caving inwards, with cracks revealing gleaming stars beyond drifting layers of silver mist.
To Lylith it seemed a wasted journey, but Josiah was drawn by something at the base of the far wall. He crouched down in the darkness and dipped his finger into the dirt, placing it on his tongue. Lylith walked round with intrigue and realized then that it wasn't dirt at all. It was ash.
“Tobacco to be precise.” Hartt remarked, as if he could read her mind.
“From Edgar?” She asked.
Josiah rubbed it between his fingers and nodded quietly. “It's still warm, he must have left, what, about twelve minutes ago at a push.”
“That's it then, we've found him!” Lylith exclaimed excitedly. “Twelve minutes is plenty of time to catch up with him, especially on the horse...”
“Lylith, he's a mentalist but he's not an idiot.” Josiah sighed, dusting the dirt from his knees as he stood. “When he went to set all this up Edgar was carrying a big wagon full of dynamite, do you honestly think he'd smoke anything near that?”
Blood & Baltazar Page 28
