by CM Raymond
He glanced at Rex. The man’s eyes were open—they followed their every move—and were filled with rage. A line of drool leaked from the side of his mouth.
Willa kicked him square in the face.
“That should hold him for a while.”
Her powers were real. Elijah knew that now. But he couldn’t be sure if he was terrified or relieved.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
Willa raised her hands again. A strange look crossed her face. Rage mixed with glee.
“I have a few ideas,” she said.
Before she could put those ideas into action, a scream echoed from the executive suite.
“Brooke!” Elijah shouted. He grabbed Willa’s hand and pulled her away from the comatose man toward the sounds of fear and pain.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Chem tore about like a madman, grabbing anything of value and shoving it into his bag. Shit was about to go down out there, in the real world beyond the four walls of the lab, and Chem knew that no one in the city would be safe.
He glanced over his shoulder at the clock ticking away on the wall. Forty-five minutes had passed since he’d left his friends, and if the city wasn’t on fire yet, he’d be surprised.
“It’s not my fault,” he said over and over again to the empty room, and there was some truth to it. He didn’t create Elijah, he didn’t ask for his shit to be stolen. And yet, the Vida Serum was his baby. It bore his fingerprints. And it was currently in the hands of a madman.
“OK, so it’s a little bit my fault. But there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
Superpowers or no superpowers, Chem always considered running headlong toward danger a piss-poor idea. Millions of years of evolution had taught the Western world that the lamb does not chase the lion, it runs like hell the other way. Not because of cowardice, but due to a deep instinctual intelligence. Something born and bred in the survivors.
At that moment, Willa and Elijah were stalking the lion, and Chem could only hope the odds might turn in their favor. But that wasn’t his problem right now. If they failed, the lion might be coming back to the lab next. Chem needed to get what he came for and get out.
Sliding open a drawer, he reached in and pulled out a false back, exposing his faithful hiding spot. His fingers felt the cool glass, causing his heart to beat in double time. “There you are!” It was the last vile of Elijah’s blood. With it, he could start over somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Science, there lay Chem’s strength. Not playing at being a hero.
He thought about Elijah and Willa. Academics. Book nerds for crying out loud, heading straight into the fire.
Superpowers or no superpowers, they weren’t exactly the hero types either.
“Shit.”
He slid the vial of blood into his black medical bag and turned to grab the last of what he needed—three syringes full of his patented painkiller and a small supply of soft metal, individually wrapped in plastic bags.
Leftovers from one of Chem’s previous failures. He looked at the metal, then made a choice.
He grabbed a glass beaker with a rubber stopper and a half-finished bottle of water from the trash. Then he stormed out of the lab, leaving the door open behind him. The laboratory had treated him well over the years, but odds were his current trajectory would never lead him back here.
It was an easy sacrifice to make.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
The enormous double doors at the end of the executive hall blocked their advance. Brooke was in there. Elijah knew it. He prayed that she was okay, that Rex hadn’t hurt her, but based on the sounds pouring out from within, someone was clearly in pain.
“I hope you’ve got some healing words as well,” he said to Willa.
The look she gave him was far from comforting.
He reached for the giant handles. They were cold enough to burn. Ignoring the pain, he pushed into the CEO’s office.
Across the room, an older man in a suit lay flat on the mahogany executive desk. Brooke Alarawn leaned over him. She kept him pinned with a knee on his chest. Her hands were wrapped around his throat—squeezing away his existence.
Her eyes were blue fire, and a thin layer of ice encased her body, like a windshield on a Pittsburgh winter morning. Her hair, a wild mane, encircled her head in a dark halo.
It was Brooke, not Rex that had taken the serum. The monster was real, and she had been in his bed not long ago.
“Brooke. No,” Elijah yelled.
The prostrate executive’s head rolled to the side. Elijah couldn’t tell if he was alive.
Brooke stared at them like an untamed beast. She was small, but nevertheless terrifying. The intensity in her voice matched the intensity of the ice encasing her. “What are you doing here?” she snarled.
“We came here to save you…but…the board room…what have you done?”
Brooke vaulted off the desk like a practiced gymnast. Her body nimble, she glistened as she walked toward them. “I don’t need saving. I am the Savior. And now that I have your blood coursing through my veins, I’ll be able to save the city and everyone in it.”
Elijah tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Seeing her in this new form was too much.
“My father didn’t have the strength to do what was required—wasn’t strong enough for twenty-first-century steel. Thanks to him, this son of a bitch,” Brooke gestured back to the figure on the desk, “could take everything from me. They’re going to take it all, break it into bits, and ship it overseas. That can’t happen. Pittsburgh needs this place.”
“Brooke, let him go. He knows what you are. I don’t think you’re gonna have any problems with him or his people for a long, long time.”
Brooke Alarawn let out something between a shriek and a laugh. She walked back to her victim and ran a fingertip from his hairline down to the tip of his nose and across his lips. Her hand landed on his neck. “Don’t be so naïve, Elijah. The world doesn’t work like that. Sure, you can run off to your library when this is all over, but what about me? What about Alarawn Industries? What about Pittsburgh?”
As Brooke spoke, the coat of ice covering her body solidified, thickening before his eyes. The temperature in the room continued to drop. Elijah’s thoughts turned to the scene in the adjoining boardroom. He pictured his own body, broken and scattered around the Alarawn office like knick-knacks from a deranged Hallmark store.
Every fiber of his being told him to flee, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t just leave her. At her core, Brooke Alarawn was good. Kind. Noble. He had seen that. She had been perverted by the slanted blood that ran through his own body. The girl sipping whiskey and smoking a cigarette on his balcony was who she really was. He could help her. Bring her back. That was all he knew. All he cared to know.
“I get it, Brooke,” Elijah said. “You’ve given all to this city—for these people. They don’t understand, and they probably never will.” He caught a glance of Willa out of his peripheral vision. A “what the hell are you doing?” look had come over her face.
“If you’re going to make a difference, it can’t be like this. You lost it in there—which I can understand—but we need a plan. We’re going to need to clean up the mess, figure out a way forward. We can do this together. We’re made for this.”
The room warmed, just a little.
Brooke’s shoulders relaxed.
“You believe me?” she asked. Her face softened, only a little. He could see the longing in her eyes.
“Always,” Elijah said, with the most authentic smile he could muster. “That’s why I came to Pittsburgh. I believed in you, in Alarawn Industries, in this city. I want to be a part of its bright future. Of your bright future.”
Brooke leaned against the table. Her pale skin was visible again through the sheet of ice. She was lost in thought. Elijah held his breath.
“Thank you.” Brooke exhaled. Her eyes still looked animalistic, only a little less so. “With my power—our powers, Elijah—we can make this
city great again.”
Elijah thought they might just make it out of the building alive.
“Bullshit,” Willa screamed at the frozen woman.
“Willa, stop,” Elijah whispered.
But she didn’t. “It was you all along. You killed him. You killed Sean. He was a member of this city. And you had him murdered.”
Brooke looked confused for a moment, but then she simply shrugged it off. “There are plenty of bones beneath this city. They make for a strong foundation.”
Elijah held in a groan. He reached out to grab Willa’s hand, but it was too late. Rage took her and she charged at Brooke.
Ice on the surface of Brooke’s body thickened and turned deep charcoal gray. The crystalline exoskeleton took all of Brooke’s features and enhanced them. She looked like a champion bodybuilder, her muscles taut, thick, and unyielding. The last parts of her body turned as Willa Weil dove at her. Sidestepping like a master bullfighter, the creature brought down a fist across Willa’s back. The blow altered the poet’s trajectory.
Elijah watched as his friend’s body crumpled on the floor. Willa lay motionless.
“No!” he shouted, but Brooke was unfazed.
“I thought you would help me. Realize my project. But it wasn’t you, it was me all along. I’m the Cold Steel that this city needs.”
Elijah wasn’t sure if it was Alarawn’s words, the sight of Willa’s broken body, or the images of death still fresh from the boardroom, but at that moment there was a catalyst within him. And instead of fighting it, he welcomed it.
“Please help me,” he whispered to the mysterious creature he’d never met.
About damn time, the voice inside responded.
Elijah smiled and opened his arms wide. The change happened nearly instantaneously this time—and he was conscious through it all.
In seconds, Elijah’s form expanded rapidly. He felt pain, but the power covered it. Fire burned in his chest. His thinking gained great clarity. And with him through it all was Gabrijel.
No longer were their spirits at odds with one another. Instead, they embraced in perfect harmony that sustained Elijah’s body through the change.
Holding his arms in front of his face, Elijah saw the molten steel as if for the first time. The cracks in his outer layer bled a burning orange-red glow. In a heartbeat, steam filled the room, as fire and ice collided. Condensation covered the windows.
The cold eyes of Brooke Alarawn—or of the creature that was once her—watched the entire transformation.
“Hey, hotshot. You want to dance?” She laughed, looking at her new body. “Looks like your chemist friend improved my batch. Or maybe I’m the improvement. No matter. Sadly, for you, I’m ten times your strength.”
Elijah opened his mouth to respond. “Di do pitchi, kurva!” The shock of his alien tongue didn’t slow him. His voice was gravel. “I’ll fight ten times as hard.”
He charged, but the weight of his body was disorienting. His movements were too slow. The ice creature jumped over Elijah’s seven-foot frame and landed on the table behind him. Before he could turn, Alarawn spun and landed a roundhouse kick to the back of Elijah’s head.
Her ice block of a leg connected like a freight train at full-tilt. Elijah felt an impact wave ripple through his body.
Disoriented, he tried to right himself. With a scream, Alarawn launched herself from the table. Elijah threw a sloppy right hook and connected with the creature in mid-air, sending her spinning across the room.
“Stop this, Brooke. This isn’t you. Come back to me, we can manage this together.”
“Brooke is gone. I am the one who will save this city. I am its queen!”
Well, shit, Elijah thought.
Elijah lifted the enormous desk as if it were made of cardboard. He heaved it at her, then followed its path toward the ice monster. She batted away the desk, leaving herself exposed for Elijah’s tackle. He threw himself with all that he had. The two figures hurtled across the room and crashed through a sheetrock wall.
Got her, Gabrijel said, but Elijah wasn’t so sure.
He looked down into frozen eyes. With his left hand on her chest, he pulled back to strike a blow he hoped would only knock her out. Before he could, she grabbed the back of his neck and whipped her head into his. The strike sent waves of pain through his molten skull. With a flick of her legs, she threw him back into the office.
Elijah shook his head.
She was getting the best of him, and he knew he wouldn’t win this without finding a way to turn the tables. Brooke was too fast. The tight space was disorienting. He needed room to move, and he needed to get danger as far from Willa’s unconscious body as possible.
Brooke stood between him and the doorway. He needed to find a way to get her out of this room and into the open.
“It’s over, Professor. Even with whatever you have swimming in your blood, you’re finished. You’re a mistake—an accident. I was born for this.”
She held up an arm. In her hand was the Alarawn medallion. Or rather, Gabrijel’s medallion. Light danced across the symbol of the zduhac, of heroes.
“I thought it was the damned medallion,” she said, looking at the object in her hand. “I thought the power was another gift that I inherited. But it’s worthless.” She squeezed, and the metal disk shattered. Elijah watched it fall to the ground. He could feel the spirit inside him cry at the sight.
But Brooke didn’t notice.
“This power that I have, I wasn’t born with it. I earned it. I took it. And I will take so much more. Starting with you.”
“You want me?” Elijah growled. “Is that what is? You can take me—leave the others out of it.”
Brooke licked her lips. “Oh, I’ll take you…again. Maybe you’ll be more impressive this time.” As she spoke, she paced over to the businessman’s body. The man winced and groaned—apparently still alive. “But, I’m not giving up anything—for you or anyone. I don’t have to.”
In front of Elijah’s eyes, her arm lengthened, transformed into a perfectly pointed, icey lance.
“No,” Elijah yelled.
But his cry had no effect.
“Hey Lance,” she said. “What was it you said this company needed? Penetration? How does this work for you?”
She drove the pick deep, then withdrew it, seemingly amused by the blood dripping down her arm.
“Zkapat, kuhda,” the voice within Elijah screamed as he rushed her with everything he had. She raised her spear and struck his side. Piercing cold radiated through his body. But Elijah and the one within him wouldn’t stop. His legs churned. Like a linebacker attacking, he lifted her onto his shoulder and drove her—and himself—toward the window.
Time slowed.
The two-inch-thick plate glass gave way, shattering all around them.
The molten monster and the ice queen hurtled out of the thirty-eighth floor of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Tower and into the dark February sky.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Shattering glass and screams replaced the skating rink fanfare. King looked up to see a shower of glimmering shards.
“Get down,” he shouted, flipping Marcus into the concrete planter.
Two figures flew out of the window and into the night sky. They were enormous. One glowed red and the other was shimmering black with a blue haze surrounding it.
A cloud of steam enveloped them as they fell.
“Ho-lee shit,” King said.
It was hard to tell where one body ended and the other began. They tumbled toward the ground in a constant melee—plunging toward the square. Onlookers scrambled to avoid the screaming missiles.
The monsters’ yells drowned out their cries.
The pair spun, sliding down the building’s sheer walls, smashing windows as they fell.
More glass.
More shrieks.
More confusion.
Then the world shook.
King stood motionless, still not believing. He rubbed his eyes
. Everything in him shouted, “Run.” Instead, he stepped toward the smoldering mess on the pavement.
Within ten feet of the carnage, the entire sidewalk was cracked. Glass-covered concrete crunched under King’s boots. The creatures lay in a hole of their own creation. He felt a compulsion to investigate the corpses of these fallen angels—or demons.
From two steps away, he saw them for what they were. The larger wasn’t really red, but a dark slate-gray metal—with a fiery glow seeping through cracks in what could only be considered its skin. The other had the form of a woman, but large and jagged with frozen armor covering her body.
The molten monster lifted its head toward the sky and roared.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Papers caught in a cold wind flew in every direction.
Willa lifted her head with a grunt.
Where am I?
It all came back as she took in the remains of Brooke Alarawn’s office. She rolled and prepared herself for action. But she was alone. Willa crawled to the broken-out window and peered over the edge. People were running in every direction, away from the spot directly below her. Two figures, prostrate on the ground, were barely visible.
“No. Elijah,” she screamed into the wind.
Pushing through a crowd seeking refuge, Willa exited the PPG Tower.
She found Elijah and Brooke—or the creatures that they had become—engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Her mouth dropped as she took in Brooke’s form. Though thinner, she was almost the same height as Elijah. Her size was accentuated as dark clouds of condensation and frost surrounded her.
Her strength was surreal. And fast. Damn fast. The storm creature spun Elijah’s molten body and slammed him against the glass wall.
He looked like a kid boxer in the ring with a seasoned pro. As Alarawn had him against the wall, she delivered blow after blow. Willa could see his surface ripple in response to her assault. Despite his bulk, there was no way he could sustain this kind of impact. Monster or no monster, Willa was witnessing the destruction of Elijah Branton.
