by CM Raymond
The failed med student pulled a needle out of his bag and carefully drew fluid from a vial. Seldom satisfied with off-the-shelf solutions, Chem had created the pain reliever himself, and it packed one hell of a punch. A single milliliter would do the trick for his patient. At full strength, the juice would serve as a powerful tranquilizer, able to drop angry moose. Morphine would take eight times the dosage to do the job. He flicked it with his middle finger, watching the beads fly off the tip.
“This will numb you up pretty well. It will help with the pain.”
The man remained passive as he received the shot. Chem wasn’t proud of his source of income, but it made possible his research, which would change the world. And if it weren’t for him, this man’s wound would surely get infected, and he’d probably not make it. Didn’t he deserve help? Chem could never tell if he believed that or if the justification made it easier.
Fifteen minutes later he left the broken-down house with fifteen Benjamins in his pocket.
Easy money.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Willa sat in a cubicle in the sardine-can office as far from her colleagues as possible. Despite how essential part-time professors were to the university, they were easy to come by and therefore given the lowest possible pay. Working conditions weren’t exactly glamorous. Privacy was impossible. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her fellow adjuncts, but the claustrophobic environment made grading nearly impossible, and their banter served as a constant distraction.
Not that she wasn’t already distracted. Her grandfather’s words burned in her mind. And the words she had hurled back. They were true—and a long time coming. But that didn’t make them any less spiteful.
She shook her head and turned up the music.
Bose headphones swallowed her ears. She couldn’t listen to anything with lyrics, not while she was grading. Reznor’s score for “The Social Network” provided the day’s soundtrack. Its driving bars muffled the other worker bees and gave a certain rhythm to her production.
She moved her green pen with diligence and grace over a paper that had likely been written after a six-pack with some cheap action flick on in the background. Her students’ level of effort rarely impressed her, but it never affected her own. The work still required care. The poetry demanded it. And despite the crowded office and the unenthusiastic students, Willa remained pleased to be a part of this life. Her calling was a joy.
But a joy that was lessened of late. There was no paper from Sean in this stack.
Local police couldn’t find any evidence and were working under the assumption that the kid had left town under his own volition. The University made a note of his absence but did nothing else. Students come and go all the time.
No one cared that Sean was missing. No one but her. And there was nothing she could do about it.
The thought of her student in trouble gnawed at her mind—relentlessly—like a stone caught in a boot during a hike. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t put off the feeling that something terrible had happened to him. Something to do with the man in the mask.
Willa sighed. She’d been staring at the same crappy essay for ten minutes and had gotten nowhere. Time to call it a night.
She packed her papers into her backpack, nodded to the other teachers, and left the office.
Cold air greeted her as she exited through the back. It was later than she thought. Time tended to lose her when she graded.
She looked over the municipal parking lot and a small urban park. Most nights she would take the bus home, but it was Thursday. The buses would be packed with drunken, obnoxious twenty-somethings. Pulling out her phone, she tapped the Uber app. A small price to pay for peace of mind. Cars littered the interactive map—they always did on a weekend night in Oakland.
She decided to head toward the edge of campus to request a ride. A short cut down a small access road between two of the buildings would get her there in no time. Steam from the building’s ancient heating system filled the alleyway.
The night was quiet until something between a growl and shriek called out in the distance.
Willa scanned the edges of the alley, where the light faded into darkness. There was no one. No one but her, and whatever made that sound. It came from the end of the path. Willa squinted into the night.
She felt the power before she saw it.
A bright, red presence stumbled around the corner. She could hear it moving, like it was dragging itself along the pavement. And whatever it was, it wasn’t human.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Willa gasped as the creature emerged. It looked like the bastard son of a comic book villain and some kind of apocalyptic demon. Its enormous body was dark black, yet it glowed as if it was burning on the inside—as if Hades was trying to escape from the cracks in its skin. Willa could see smoke coming off its back. The creature’s strides were long but uneven—almost drunken. It lurched forward, leaving burning red embers in its wake.
Then, the monster stopped. Its head, pulsing lava, turned toward the professor. Their eyes locked.
Willa stared into the depths of hell.
The creature was grotesque. Shaped like a man, its form shifted oddly, almost fluidly. Its viscosity reminded Willa of a snowman melting during a warm February afternoon, features slowly distorted by the sun. A creation of Dante’s come to life. Whether it was the tortured or the torturer, she couldn’t tell.
Willa tried to find a poem, but nothing came to her.
The beast staggered toward her, thirty feet and closing fast. Edwin’s words echoed in her mind, her years of training screaming at her to take action. Her mind froze, but she let her body take over.
The words came on their own as she pushed one hand forward.
“The dragon that laid waste the land
Has fallen beneath my conquering hand.”
A silver light, like a spear, burst from her palm and shattered against the creature’s chest. The force of her spell stunned it, but only for a moment. Her voice grew louder, and she planted her feet and tried again. But still, the thing moved closer.
Her spell affected it, but not enough. It was almost as if the words bounced off of its molten skin.
The cold January air was getting warmer. The monster was a ball of energy. Sweat rolled down Willa’s neck. Unsure of what to do, Willa decided on a tactical retreat. She ran back down the alley as fast as her legs could take her.
The creature roared, the depth in its voice rumbling through her. She sprinted harder.
As she reached the edge of the alley, she turned back to see the monster gaining on her. It drew her focus, and she didn’t see the metal valve sticking out.
It clanged off of her leg and she skidded to a stop as she tumbled into a parking lot.
Her palms were bleeding, but she couldn’t feel the pain. Her attention was reserved for the monster. She rolled over and pushed herself back, away from it.
But on it came.
As it stepped closer, she could see a symbol burning through the charred skin on its chest. Despite the fact that death was upon her, she couldn’t help but stare. Curved lines intersected an inverted square, like a diamond wreathed in flame.
The symbol was beautiful. A taste of delight before her certain ruin.
The burning hulk raised its arms to crush her, but Willa wasn’t done yet. She spat out words that she had just used against her grandfather. Her spell came to life.
The thing’s arms crashed against an invisible shield. It staggered back confused. Willa could feel the force of its blow rattle her bones. Her words broke and with them the shield.
Not even her grandfather’s magic had done that.
The monster bore down on her, heat rolling off of it. And just as she felt she would burn up into nothing, the screeching of tires on asphalt cut through the night air. Willa and the beast looked up in tandem as a jet-black sedan hopped the curb and spun into a slide worthy of a B-grade cop film.
Willa shot to her feet and dod
ged left, just barely out of the vehicle’s trajectory. The monster was not so agile. With the sound of erupting steel, the car crashed into the giant. Its dark frame came to a halt as if it hit a concrete barrier. The tires on the far side lifted into the air and then dropped.
An impact like this would have tossed a human twenty yards. It barely knocked the molten thing over. As the monster hit the ground, Willa watched its surface move. Little waves rippled across its charred body before settling.
The creature lay motionless.
She took a step toward it but stopped when the driver’s door opened. A man, built like a powerlifter in a perfect black suit casually stepped out of the car.
It was him. Black ski mask and all. At the moment, he was a nightmare worse than the demon who had almost just killed her.
Willa struggled to get out another spell, but he was already on her. His fist slammed into her stomach like a brick. She fell to the ground.
Dark eyes stared at her for a moment from under the mask. “Not yet, Professor.” He grunted before turning toward the monster.
But it was a monster no longer.
The glow from within the thing had diminished. Molten steel pooled on the ground, and Willa could barely see the naked figure of a man. The brute bent down and touched the man’s forehead.
He nodded, then popped the trunk of the Town Car and lifted the unconscious man like a sack of potatoes. Placing him in the trunk, the suit got in his car and sped away.
Willa stared as the monster and the masked man disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Vince Charles’s large glasses and slight frame made him look like an insecure middle-schooler, despite the fact that he was a multi-millionaire nearing sixty. Brooke and the aging businessman weren’t exactly close, but he had been her father’s best friend and the closest thing she had to an ally on AI’s executive board.
And she needed allies now more than ever.
They met at noon at Primanti Brothers, a bustling sandwich shop in the city’s strip district. Primanti’s wasn’t a typical meeting place for people of their means, but Brooke was far from typical. While their lunch wasn’t exactly “off the books,” she had no desire to advertise her movements to Van Pelt and the others. The crowd provided the perfect cover.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Brooke. I don’t see much of a choice.” He kept his head down, distracting himself by picking french fries off his sandwich.
“How can selling the company be a choice at all? You know what this industry means to the city. How can we just strip it for parts and leave it to die?” she asked.
“Pittsburgh isn’t the place it once was. It has other industry. Healthcare, technology, education, and even art are more Pittsburgh than steel is now. Maybe closing up shop is the best move.” He looked up, his eyes offering something of an apology.
Brooke sat, considering her next words. She had eight months to turn the company around, and she couldn’t afford to alienate the few friends she had.
“Vince, you knew my father, knew how much he cared for this place. We can find a way to make this work, we have to.”
The man pushed aside the sandwich. He reached across the table and placed a hand on hers.
“You know you have my support. If anyone can find a way to right this ship, it’s you. Who knows, maybe your Project Cold Steel will work. Convince the city to ease off some regulations. Sign an exclusive contract with us. Those are big ifs. And I want you to understand that your father wouldn’t have wanted you to ruin yourself fighting a losing battle. You can be free to be your own person. There’s a lot of world out there.”
Brooke smiled at her father’s friend and nodded in agreement. But truthfully, she couldn’t have disagreed more. For better or worse she was bound to this place.
“Just promise me that when Project Cold Steel is a success, you’ll have my back with Van Pelt.”
Vince smiled. “I’ll always have your back, Brooke. For your father’s sake. But don’t drag your heels. We don’t have much time, and Van Pelt is sharpening his knives.”
She nodded, thinking about the historian currently in her employ. He was supposed to send a report in by this morning, but it never arrived.
“I’ve got my best people working on it as we speak,” she said and hoped it wasn’t a lie.
Brooke sat in the back seat as Rex Bertoldo pulled away from the restaurant. She could do without most of the luxuries wealth afforded, but having a driver 24-7 was an extravagance she truly loved. One time, she sat in the front passenger side, but it felt odd. Rex actually talked more when she was in the back. The man had been with the Alarawn family for as long as she remembered. It was as if he was family.
“So, what did he find?” Brooke asked.
Rex glanced into the rear-view mirror and caught Brooke’s eye. He quickly looked away. The mountain of a man turned down sports talk radio.
“Excuse me, Ms. Alarawn?”
She knew he had heard her. “I was just asking about Dr. Branton. What happened at the mill?”
Rex kept his eyes trained on the road, hands at ten and two. He was all business, especially when the boss was riding along. “Not really sure. He told me he’d feel better going in alone. I offered a few times to assist him, but the man was adamant.”
Brooke could see Rex’s jaw clench. Something was off. “Okay,” Brooke said. “But, what about when he got back to the car? Certainly, the two of you talked.”
Rex ran a big beefy hand over his bald head. “Not so much. I mean, he said it was pretty amazing, not what he expected. Otherwise, he just sat and jotted notes in his little journal. I figured I should let the man work.”
Rex slowed to a stop on Liberty Avenue. Glancing over his shoulder, he asked, “Did you want me to get some information from him? I thought I was just the driver on this one.” Rex’s voice bordered on disdain.
The man had worked for Brooke since she had taken over Alarawn Industries. She still wasn’t exactly sure how she should treat him, or what his role was. When it came down to it, Rex had five times the experience at AI than she did. Despite his tough guy exterior, she knew he was smart, driven, and shrewd. The fact that he didn’t hold a position of greater prominence was odd.
A waste.
He could do so much more. Part of her wondered if he had.
There were rumors from the old days. Company rivals going missing. Failed business deals that turned around when the opposition showed back up with broken limbs and a miraculous change of heart. She wondered if Rex had been a part of their conversion.
She wondered what he would do for her if she asked.
“No, that’s all right,” Brooke said. “I just thought he would probably talk more—you know—about what he found. I texted him a few times with no response. Like he’s avoiding me.”
He laughed—which sounded like a foreign language coming from the man. Humor and Rex were like oil and water. “He’s a strange one. We don’t have much to talk about.”
“No. How so?” Brooke asked.
“Probably just the fact that he’s an egghead, and I’m a meathead. If you can’t talk sports, guns, and women, I’m not much of a conversationalist.”
Brooke smiled, knowing full well the truth of that statement. More than once Rex had been the only company she had in her lonely existence. The light turned green, and Rex fell silent as he eased the town car off the line.
She picked up her phone and tried Elijah again. Maybe it was time she found someone new to talk to.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Elijah’s eyes cracked open and he grabbed the sheets. He was in his room, safe. But his heart still pounded from the nightmare he awoke from. Fire. Pain. A man in a mask. The dream retreated out of sight, but those feelings and images remained. His head pounded. He felt like one of the frat boys in the back row of his class after an all-night bender.
He tried to remember if he had gone out drinking, but he could
n’t recall. Couldn’t recall anything, in fact, except the factory.
Chills crept over his body. The sheets, tangled in his legs and extended up, over his torso. As he shifted ever so slightly, a searing pain shot through his side and into his shoulder. Gingerly, he reached across his body and pulled the sheet back. His rib cage, where he felt the most acute pain, looked like a work of postmodern art. Splotches of purple in different shades littered his skin. He gently pressed on the darkest area and cringed.
What the hell?
With gritted teeth, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. The pounding in his head matched the throbbing in his side. Elijah rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand. More pain. Pulling the sheet off the rest of his body, he found himself completely naked.
Not his customary nighttime attire.
Blood caked his sheets.
He ran his hand through his hair. It was coarse and sticky. Once he made peace with the pain, as much as he could, Elijah searched his memory.
What happened? Where was I?
He attempted to build an itinerary of the previous day—to reconsider the events. The walk through his morning ritual, the wasted class, and even his conversation with Willa.
I was with Rex. The old mill. And then...
Every nerve in his body screamed as he crossed his bedroom toward the attached bathroom. A foreign image stared back at him from the mirror. The usual circles under his eyes, which accompanied late nights and long study-sessions, were deeper and darker than ever. A three-inch laceration spread from his cheekbone down under his beard. He patted it with his index and middle fingers, sucking wind at the lightest touch.
Stitches might be in order.
His academic body appeared just a bit less flabby than it had the previous day as if he had taken on a day’s worth of a workout regimen. A foreign scar marked the center of his chest. It was scabbed, red, and pus-filled. Elijah squinted, nearly certain he could spot a faint pattern in it.
