“Oh, for God’s sake, child, give him the simple version for now. I can’t believe you had to ask that. Now go on.”
Jessica’s face went slightly red at the word ‘child’, but she turned in her seat to face David anyway. “All of us were born with certain abilities that are anomalous in humans. We call these abilities EFHB, which stands for Extraordinary Functions of the Human Body. EFHB, a term first used by Chinese scientists, is used here to distinguish what we can do from the stigma attached to words like ‘paranormal’ and ‘psychic.’ Almost everyone has some degree of psychic powers. They experience moments of déjà vu or brief telepathic contact with their loved ones. That’s normal. It differs from person to person, kind of like the propensity toward sports and puzzle solving. Some people are stronger than others. What we do is very different. That’s why we are called Anomalies. We are outside the realm of normalcy.”
Jared squirmed in his seat. “Can we talk about my re-test?” He focused on cleaning his fingernails as he spoke. David realized that Jared barely looked at Ms. Ryerson and, when he did, the look was one of contempt. He wondered just how Ms. Ryerson had gotten that broken arm.
“No, Jared,” Ms. Ryerson answered. “At this point in time I’m not sure there will be any re-tests. Wisdom wants me to ensure you’re ready for more concrete scenarios, so I’m going to have to skip fairly quickly through a few lessons. Now, each of you lean back in your chairs. Go on, get comfortable. David, I would appreciate it if you would stop clawing at the furniture. You may be a freak of nature but, nerves aside, you are not a cat. The first thing we learn is how you can access your abilities at will. I am going to teach you some concentration exercises before we move on to the big stuff. What is the first step in relaxation? Anyone?”
Bethany opened her mouth to answer. Then her face went lax.
She looked around her, as if searching the corners of the room for something.
“Bethany, what …?”
“Hush, Toddie. Do you hear that?”
The room was silent.
Bethany got up from her chair and walked to the windows. “It’s coming from outside.”
Ms. Ryerson stared at Bethany’s back, her lips tense and white.
“Do you hear anything?” she asked Todd.
“No, Ms. Ryerson, but then I’m not as strong as Beth. What about you, David? Anything?”
David’s eyes went wide and he shook his head. “What am I supposed to be hearing?” He stopped and looked around his mind to see if anything seemed out of place. “I do feel…something. Almost…I guess it does kind of feel like I’m being watched.”
“This can’t be good.” Amy got up from her chair and went to stand beside the older woman.
“What the hell is this?” David asked. He stayed in his seat. “Bethany?”
Bethany shook her head, her eyes focusing between the city streets below and the windows of the nearby glass buildings. “I don’t think they know I’ve spotted them. They are cloaking their thoughts. I only caught it because I was thinking of how that creep Jessica is so hard to read.”
“I’m not hard to read,” Jessica said. “You’re just a bad reader. And I am not a creep. I’m just stronger than you and you’re jealous. There are three of them, Ms. Ryerson. They are about to enter the front lobby. Do you want me to send for Elaine?”
Ms. Ryerson nodded, slowly clenching her good fist over and over. Then she shook her head. “No, I’ll take care of it. Jessica, I am putting you in charge until I get back. David, you’re new, but trust me on this. Follow her lead. I want the five of you to meet up with the others on the roof. A helicopter will be waiting by the time you get there. You’ve all got to get out of the country ASAP.”
Amy looked at the ground for a moment, glanced at Jessica, who only shook her head, and then bit her lip. Then she said: “It is them, isn’t it, Ms. Ryerson?”
Ms. Ryerson blinked and looked away. “Do as I say. If you’re lucky, you will never find out. Now go.” With that, Ms. Ryerson ran off faster than humanly possible, little more than color in motion.
“How…? What...?” David was out of his chair now.
“You’re such a newbie.” Jessica rolled her eyes and walked toward from the main bank of elevators. “Do you think Wisdom would hire someone normal to teach us? Come on, we’ll take the private elevator.”
David started after her. “Shouldn’t we wait for one of the guards? You know, the guys with guns and training? It could be dangerous.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Jessica answered. “Of course it will be dangerous. But so are we.”
David looked over at Bethany, who was still looking out the windows.
“See,” Bethany said. “I told you she’s creepy. Come on, we should follow them. This could be bad. Poor guy, you have no idea what you’ve got yourself into, do you? I wish I could tell you, but somehow I don’t think you’re ready for the truth.”
“So I hear. Can you tell me why the hell everyone’s acting like the Russians are coming?”
Bethany laughed and put her arm around David’s waist as they followed the others out of the classroom and through the halls. “You are far too young for that reference. Hell, I’m too young for it. Well, not really, but I feel too young for it. The reason we are leaving is that a group of…well let’s just call them a group for now. They are coming and they want to kill us. No, I can’t tell you why. Of course I know why. I’m just not allowed to tell you. Not yet. Mr. Wisdom has some enemies, very bad men who do very bad things.”
“You know, the whole answering questions before I ask them is also very disturbing. Can you stop that? Are these the same ones that got to Madeline?”
The color drained from Bethany’s face. She shook her head, clearly upset. “What do you know about that? Never mind, I’m still not telling you anything. But yes, I do think so. Maybe not the same ones, exactly, but the same group. Listen, we don’t have much time and I don’t even know what you are capable of. Do you know?”
Ahead, he saw Jessica point her finger at the two Chinese men that had almost run into him earlier. While he watched, both men nodded their heads and took guns out from inside their jackets.
“Yes. I know what I can do.”
“Good. Because if we don’t get to that helicopter on the roof you may have to do some of whatever it is you do. Look, don’t give me that face. See guns? People running? This is not a ‘let’s talk about it’ situation. This is not an ‘Orange Alert.’ This is a ‘kill or be killed’ type of situation.”
They caught up with Jessica and the others just as the door to the elevator opened. Once inside, Todd pressed his hands against the metal doors and they started to rise very quickly.
“Todd, can you make this go any faster? They’re in the building now.” Jessica pulled on her lower lip with her fingers. She looked like an old woman worried about her taxes.
“If I make it go any faster the cables could snap and we’d fall right into their laps. Now let me concentrate.”
Although he did not seem to be pushing very hard, there was a lot of sweat pouring off his forehead. David could not begin to fathom exactly what Todd was doing.
“What happens if they find us?” David asked. “They just kill us and leave? Won’t they try to kill Wisdom and the others first?”
Jessica shook her head. “You don’t go after Wisdom. Even these morons know that. I can smell it in their brains. They will come right for us and the other Anomalies, but they will eliminate anyone that gets in their way.”
“Except Wisdom.” Todd was starting to show signs of weariness. His eyes twitched and sweat poured freely from his damp hair.
“Oh.” Jessica let the sound drop from her mouth. It was soft, barely audible but the word filled the elevator like a large, heavy object.
“I can feel it too,” Amy said. “They have started to kill people.”
“Most of them don’t even know anything about us. Todd, please try to make this go a little faster. It’s no
t that I’m scared or anything but I…I just don’t want…”
The elevator stopped abruptly and everyone let out a short yelp.
David wiped his own forehead. Until that moment he had not realized he was sweating. Part of him wondered if this was some sort of bizarre test. The only thing that convinced him it was all completely real was the messages his brain kept sending him. While he could not decode them all, the general meaning was clear. Somewhere nearby, people were dying and people were screaming.
The elevator door opened.
***
Ezekiel Scratch was a security guard. He had no particular love for the work and he certainly felt little or no honor in the profession. Still, he did not think about quitting daily as so many people do at their jobs. People checked in with him when they entered the building at 333 Bay St. It was a big building, lots of visitors, and most of them really had no clue how to make their way around. It was his job to point them in the right direction. As security jobs go it was one of the best. He did not have to wander around some warehouse with a flashlight pretending to watch for thieves and vandals as he tried to stay awake. He did not work with money or anything valuable, so the risk of robbery was barely calculable. Here he was able to interact with people, see the light of day and be home each night to Dianna and the kids.
Downtown Toronto is also one of the most peaceful cities of its size in the world. It does not attract the same type of crazies as New York or Los Angeles, and its murder rate is next to non-existent compared to places like Chicago and Detroit. In the five years Ezekiel had worked on Bay Street the most violence he had seen was a freshly-fired accountant point his finger at his former boss and threaten to break his skull for letting him go. The guy never followed up on the threat. Violence outside the hockey rink just did not come natural to Canadians.
Which is why it took him a long time to realize the gunshots and the screams around him were real.
Then the elevator gave a sharp 'Ding!' A group of muscular men and women in dark suits rushed off the elevator touting large rifles and handguns. For a moment, Ezekiel wondered if they were just filming some movie here again. The absence of cameras and the very real smell of blood made it hard to believe the comfortable lie.
Ezekiel rose from his hiding spot and started to follow after the people with guns. That is what security guards do, he thought. Then a woman with a blond crop-cut and a lot of firepower told him to stay back. She pointed out a coffee stand where a few people who worked in the building were hiding.
“Protect them,” the blond woman said.
He crouched down and did just that. For five minutes there was nothing but screaming and gunshots. Then a relative silence.
“What are they doing now?”
Ezekiel checked his gun again, to make sure the safety was off. It was the third time he had checked since the shooting started. As before, it was ready to fire. He had never shot a gun at another person, although he was not sure the things he saw qualified as people.
“Zeek, I said what the hell are they doing? Can you see?”
Ezekiel looked at the people huddled in the corner with him. Then he looked back down the hallway that led to the lobby. He saw the three ‘things’ causing all the damage. Bodies and bullet shells littered the floor. He watched as one of the three ‘things’ (he could not bring himself to use the word monster) lifted the body of a young man up by the legs and tossed it two hundred feet down the hall. Another picked up a white-haired Chinese woman, bit into her neck and started to chew.
“Don’t ask.” Ezekiel swallowed hard. He was proud of himself for not fainting. “Besides, I can’t see much. It’s starting to get smoky.” He said this to the woman who owned the coffee stand. He had bought coffee from her every morning since he had started the job. He had no idea what her name was, and no clue as to how she knew his. In the moment, he forgot he wore a nametag. “I think they’ve started a fire.”
“A fire!” She stood up and Ezekiel grabbed her arm to pull her back down.
“It doesn’t look big. For Christ sakes you can’t go out there. You didn’t see what they are.
The woman took a strong grip on his hand, tore it from her arm and got back up. “Don’t you be grabbing me! I am not your property and you are definitely not my knight in shining armor. Shouldn’t you be out there stopping this? You’re a security guard, aren’t you? Or are the uniform and flimsy badge just for show? And of course I’ve seen what they are. Just a bunch of guys in suits. They came off the elevator. You were there when they did.”
Ezekiel shook his head. “That wasn’t them. There are only three of them. They came in the front door and they…”
“There’s only three?” She grabbed her purse and started to walk away. “We outnumber them even here. You can do what you like but I’m not staying here.”
An African-Canadian man behind her, still gripping his cappuccino, spoke up.
“Melinda, for Christ’s sake, get down!”
“I am not getting down,” the woman said. “I’m getting out. There’s got to be a fire door around here. We can….”
She was cut off by another round of gunshots. The woman flattened herself against the floor several feet away from any sign of protection. Ezekiel, the black man and the two women still behind the coffee stand shrieked. Ezekiel nearly dropped his gun. He was sweating through his uniform now and he could barely keep his stands steady. But the coffee-stand lady was right. He did have a job to do. He took several sharp breaths and then got out from behind the coffee stand to protect the stranger.
He pointed his gun at the spot where the hallway met the foyer. He could not see much except shadows and smoke, but he could hear the chaos. His teeth felt fragile as he clenched his jaw. Sweat dripped into his eye. He did not dare take the time to wipe it away. Something could show up in that moment. If it did, he wanted both of his hands on the trigger.
The gunshots were coming pretty steadily now. In fact, they seemed to be getting louder. That could only mean the fight was coming into the elevator area.
The coffee-stand lady lay face down on the ground, holding her purse up to guard her forehead.
“Miss, get up.” Ezekiel knelt down beside her, still pointing the gun as stiffly as he could. “We’ve got to….”
He stopped.
Shapes came out of the smoke, walking backwards. They moved very slowly, gracefully, the shooting and the screaming little more than an annoyance. When they were free of the smoke, one of them turned around and looked directly at Ezekiel.
Ezekiel stared back.
He felt as if the gun was going to drop out of his hand at any moment. The only thing that kept it there was the knowledge that the safety was not on and he had no way of knowing if or where the bullet would go.
“Mother of god.” He wanted to look away but found that he could not move. A deer in headlights. He was frozen, watching the shadows move through the smoke into solid objects. Then the evil thing turned away from him, faced the nearest elevator and ripped the metal doors open with its hands. Steel tore like paper. Ezekiel looked down at his gun. Sweat ran onto his lips now. What kind of person could turn their back on a gun? But then again, what kind of person….
“…has wings?”
The other two winged creatures turned to look at him now, their eyes empty holes of red-trimmed white light. All three appeared to be male but their facial features slipped when he focused on them. One moment they were blond Caucasians, the next their skin was covered in green scales. One snapped his fingers and the area connecting the foyer with the elevator area suddenly disappeared. A wall of darkness appeared where once there was only smoke. It seemed especially dark against the luminescent white of their wings. The second the darkness settled in place, Ezekiel could no longer hear the gunshots and screaming from the other room.
The first winged man now had all the metal torn away from the elevator door. There was no sign of the actual carriage but that did not stop them from stepping i
nside. One by one they jumped into the elevator shaft. And flew up.
Ezekiel flipped the safety on his gun, placed it quietly beside the coffee-stand woman and ran toward the back doors.
***
“Damn!” Elaine pounded the butt of her shotgun against the wall of swirling blackness for a third time. It was getting hard to breathe with all the smoke in the air. Most of the civilians ran out into the streets as soon as they caught a good look at the Edimmu. The rest were currently being escorted out by her security team. She turned on the two-way radio installed in the collar of her trench coat and called Wisdom.
“Yes?” His voice sounded tinny and even more inhuman than normal.
“They’re inside. They’ve put up some sort of wall. We can’t follow. Are the others away?”
“Should be,” Wisdom’s voice came back. “Don’t worry about the Edimmu. I will take care of them. Get the others and leave the building. I can’t guarantee it will still be standing when this fight is over.”
“Affirmative.”
She turned off the radio and motioned for the rest of her security team to get out of the building. Elaine had served Wisdom for over ten years. In all that time, she had never actually seen him in action. Each time they had encountered an Edimmu or Council member, the bad guys had always made a hasty retreat. There was something in Wisdom even the inhuman feared.
She prayed, for all their sakes, Wisdom lived up to his reputation.
***
David was the first to walk out onto the roof. Three helicopters were there, but each of their blades had been shattered like glass. Black smoke poured out of their interiors like liquid sewage overflowing from a toilet. Near the edge of the building, a pocket of strangers stared at the metallic corpses. He recognized some of them from the common room yesterday. Perhaps these were the rest. He did not, however, see Garnet.
“What should we do now, Jessica?” Amy asked.
The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 91
