The Crucible (Steel City Heroes Book 2)
Page 1
THE CRUCIBLE
By LE Barbant and CM Raymond
First Edition
Copyright © Smoke and Steel Books
April, 2016
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people or events are entirely coincidental.
CONTENTS
THE CRUCIBLE
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PART TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DEDICATION
The Crucible is dedicated to the city of Pittsburgh, where heroes are born.
PROLOGUE
Oh, God, please.
Rob Vinton hadn’t spoken to a higher power since the last election cycle. Four years ago, he prayed for the life he always wanted.
Now, his lips moved for the only life he had.
Vinton spun his weight to the left and skidded around the corner of a building like an 80s-era cartoon character. Metal trash cans rattled as he slapped them to gain his balance. He splashed through puddles in the back alley potholes. The air hung damp from the late evening rain.
A three-piece suit and wingtips weren’t built for speed, but the out-of-shape 40-something aimed to break his high school mile record.
He ran with everything he had, until everything he had wasn’t enough.
“Shit,” Rob yelled. The alley terminated at a brick wall.
Unlike the thriller movies Vinton was so fond of, there was no fire escape to climb, no broken windows to crawl through, and he certainly couldn’t fight like Jason Bourne.
One similarity existed: He was being hunted.
Making himself as small as possible, Vinton crouched in the corner behind a dirty box spring, the only piece of cover available in the dark alley. The smell of rotting garbage filled his nostrils.
The clanging of metal on concrete pierced the night air. Vinton held his breath. His heart thumped in his chest. A giant, silhouetted in the street lamps, stepped into view. Its slow, laboring steps shook the ground. The monster passed by with great intent, seeking its prey.
Rob Vinton reached for his phone and pushed the power button in hopes that he could pull just enough juice to make a distress call. He cursed himself for leaving it unplugged. The Android symbol came to life as the creature turned toward him. Its features were unclear, but the red glowing cracks permeating its body were unmistakable.
The beast took a heavy step forward; its form loomed larger than life.
“Come on, come on.”
Warning: 2% Battery Life flashed at the man.
He swiped for an emergency call, and prayed again.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“Thank God. I’m trapped. The metal monster. It’s after me,” Rob Vinton whispered into his dying phone.
“Sir, you need to speak up.”
“I can’t. It’s…” A giant hand grabbed the box spring—Rob’s tiny shelter—and threw it down the alley. Rob lay exposed. He looked up into the glowing red eyes of the creature born from hell.
“Your work is over,” the monster said with a growl.
“No,” Rob screamed.
“Sir, you need to speak up.”
The monster raised its fists and dropped them on its victim.
It struck again and again, until there was little more than dental records and a stray fingerprint to identify the lifeless body of Robert Vinton.
PART ONE
Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face
Terror the Human Form Divine
And Secrecy, the Human Dress
The Human Dress, is forged Iron
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal’d
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.
“A Divine Image,” William Blake
CHAPTER ONE
The yellow moving truck swayed down I-79, barreling towards its destination in the Steel City. Elijah Branton sighed. Pittsburgh had been his residence for a short time, but it already felt like home. The historian gave much over the past nine months—more had been taken away. The events of the previous winter had wed him to the city, a swift and effective consummation, uneasily divorced. Two months in Boston confirmed that Pittsburgh was where he belonged. It was inexplicable, like so many things. Although the scholar in him still despised the unknown, he had decided to trust the feelings drawing him back to Western Pennsylvania.
Chem rode shotgun, and sang along with Froggy, the local country station. He droned, out of tune, with old honky-tonk and new pop hits for most of the drive from New England. Elijah was grateful for his help, but nine hours with the tone-deaf companion made him wonder if it was worth it.
“I never pegged you as a country fan,” Elijah said with a grimace.
“Is that a black joke?” Chem stared through the windshield.
“What? Black joke? No. I just meant…”
“’Cause for your information, there happens to be plenty of brothers who appreciate a little Toby Keith from time to time.”
“Chem, no. I didn’t mean that, it’s just…”
“In fact when I was down in the south, there was this one black, gangsta-looking brother, he loved him some Dixie Chicks. Sure, it was a while ago, but he loved the Dixie Chicks. You don’t get much whiter than that.”
Elijah said, “Hey, man, I’m sorry…”
“Racist.”
Elijah flushed.
“I’m messing with you, man.” Chem laughed. “I mean, I’d have said the same if you popped in a ‘Fight the Power’ CD.”
Elijah looked at him blankly.
“Really? Public Enemy? Def Jam Records? Ringing any bells?”
Elijah grinned. “Does that make me more racist?”
“Probably.” Chem reached for the radio and turned the dial, his normal toothy grin spread across his face. “You had a big crush on Tori Amos, didn’t you?”
Fitting all his earthly possessions into a twelve-foot truck relieved the professor. The life of a young academic wasn’t geared toward laying down roots. Boston had claimed several formative years, but had given him little more than a few mediocre publications and a broken engagement to show for it. The town was only a reminder
of fouled relationships and a poisoned vocation. Adjuncting on the circuit burned him out. He was a hired gun with no connection to the hits he was paid so little to carry out. But this move came not only with a sense of closure but with a glimpse at a new beginning.
The tired truck coughed its way out of the Fort Pitt tunnel, and its passengers were greeted by the explosion of the skyline accessorized by its bridges and rivers. Over his thirty-four years, Elijah had lived in many cities, but none had a gateway quite like Pittsburgh’s. His stomach turned over when PPG Place came into site. The soaring tower of glass and steel topped with fairytale spires soured his homecoming, even though he fully expected its effect.
Brooke Alarawn, the CEO of the steel company that had hired him for a research job, turned out to be more complicated than a Facebook relationship status. At the base of Pittsburgh’s iconic glass and steel high-rise their brief affair came to a climactic end. Brooke, transformed into a monster of ice and hate, and Elijah, taking the form of metal and fire, went toe-to-toe, leaving shattered glass and broken dreams in their path.
Chem scanned from country to The Fan, Pittsburgh’s sports talk channel.
“Not this one,” Elijah said. Like most academics, Branton was allergic to sports.
But his aversion to The Fan had more personal origins. It always made him think of Rex, Brooke’s assistant. The man had remained a mystery since the day Elijah laid eyes on him. It only increased on the final night when he engaged Elijah and his friends at the tower. Rex wasn’t just Brooke’s driver, he was a warrior. The man’s involvement in the chaotic events remained veiled in ambiguity, but his complicity was undeniable. What Elijah knew for certain was that Rex was still out there.
Elijah hit scan once more. The radio landed on a local news report as they crossed the Fort Pitt Bridge and exited toward their new place in Homestead.
“…man was found dead this morning in Springdale, just outside the city. Authorities have yet to determine cause of death but sources close to the scene report that it appears as if this is another victim of the so-called ‘monster problem.’”
Elijah turned up the volume as a reporter began interviewing local witnesses.
“‘I saw it with my own two eyes. It was large and glowing, scared my dog nearly to death. It was that same thing that smashed up Mount Washington last winter...”
Elijah glanced over at his driving partner. An uneasy feeling settled in his chest.
“Home sweet home.”
****
The moving truck eased across the Homestead Grays Bridge, an enormous structure that spanned the Monongahela and marked their movement into the town of Homestead. While it was true that Elijah despised sports and the culture it nurtured, he felt a compulsive need to research the history and symbols associated with his new home. In Pittsburgh, that most often meant sports history. Renamed in 2002, the bridge was a memorial to the Homestead Grays. Born of the Homestead steel mills, the Grays was a baseball team banned from the Major League due to the complexion of the majority of the players. The blue-collar sluggers joined the Negro National League and took home the first nine pennants. That was the kind of sports the historian could appreciate.
On the east side of the river, the Waterfront welcomed urban dwellers, suburbanites, and their fat wallets. It offered every chain imaginable from PF Chang’s to a movie theater with La-Z-Boy recliners. Sitting on the old brownfield of one of the largest steel mill sites of ages past, the Waterfront was a memorial to the past and a vision for the future.
Elijah smiled. Brooke came to mind again, and this was precisely the future Pittsburgh she was fighting against.
The academic in him still fell into thinking about places like the Waterfront in abstract terms. He recalled hours fighting with a friend who taught Community Development at one of the small private colleges in the Northeast. “There’s a fine line between urban development and gentrification,” she had said, five times during the course of three drinks. Was it better for Homestead to look like a yuppified complex that existed simultaneously in a hundred other cities all over the nation, or for it to take on a richer, more local (and less economically viable) milieu?
Just up the hill from the middle-class extravaganza was Homestead proper, which had seen better days. The neighborhood struggled to define itself in a post-steel age. Chem and Elijah decided the struggling underdog of a community suited them just fine. They were pleased to be a part of its fight for restoration, and it fit their limited budgets.
Elijah exhaled as the truck moved up West Street, away from the Waterfront. The town became a town again. New hipster bars, with fixed-gear bicycles locked out front, were scattered among old-time BBQ joints. White Presbyterian steeples stood blocks from black AME Zion churches. The multiracial dimension enhanced the appeal for Chem—even if he did listen to country music in the confines of the moving truck.
They turned left onto Tenth, a narrow, beat-up little street, barely wide enough to accommodate their boat of a truck.
“Here it is,” Chem said, with a nod to a house nestled tightly between two others both looking ready for demolition. Diagonally across the street was a green patch of urban park.
“Not much to look at,” Elijah said.
“Well, it’s our lair. And it’s what we can afford on the salaries of an adjunct and a DIY chemist.”
Elijah smiled at the sleepy little street and their dilapidated house. It was 1920s-era construction, with a sagging roof over a small porch. Its brick was dark, a patina from years of standing stubbornly against the soot rising from the stacks at the bottom of the hill.
He could imagine the man of the house dropping down the front steps, lunch pail in hand, heading off for the second shift at the mill.
“This is perfect.”
****
“Tim Ford.” The man in the sleeveless flannel and ripped jeans jut his hand out. “Glad to meet ya. Chem’s told me a lot about you.”
Elijah forced a grin. “Is that right? How much, exactly?”
The man grabbed Elijah’s hand and winked. “A lot. But don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. And I expect mine will be with you as well.” He slapped Elijah on the shoulder and stepped toward the truck. “Let’s get this son-of-a-bitch empty, and I’ll buy you a brew. We can swap stories then.”
Tim Ford was everything that Elijah Branton wasn’t. The adjunct watched his new associate carry boxes two at a time, jealous of his energy. A man’s man, his ragged blond hair fell just between a set of high cheekbones and an angular chin. His exposed arms were muscular—but not pretty. They evidenced real world working strength, rather than arms carefully crafted in a $300 a month gym. A dark tattoo, a bow and arrow surrounded by some smaller lettering, embellished his right bicep. Faded scars were emblematic of stories from the man’s mysterious past. Elijah knew little about Tim. Chem had held his cards close to the vest. The historian could only assume that this man was invited into their small circle of freaks for a good reason. But Tim’s gritty exterior poorly represented his personality. All smiles, the man joked and laughed throughout the move. He worked twice as fast, with vigor unmatched by the two men whose physiques were formed in the library and the lab.
Elijah struggled with a large box of books, weaving past the scattered furniture on the first floor. His room lay right off the kitchen. He moved to deposit the heavy box on the bed when he stumbled across something in his path. A harsh scream met his ears and he caught sight of an orange pile of fur darting from the bedroom.
Willa’s cat, Cat, had obviously made itself at home.
When Elijah had first met the pet, he found it odd that a creature belonging to a poet would have such a prosaic name. But the animal’s name aptly described its personality. Aloof yet needy, lazy and violent, fat but also swift, Cat was a synthesis off all things feline, which meant that it was a paradox and a complete mystery to the historian.
The large animal made Elijah think of its owner, but his reverie was interrupted as
Tim pushed through his door and dumped another pair of large boxes on the ground.
“That was the last of ’em. Yinz guys ready for a drink?” Tim asked, with a hint of a Pittsburgh accent.
CHAPTER TWO
“That’s great, brother. But you can’t eat your ideals.”
The crowd at the Park House was scant, even for a weekday afternoon. While the day-to-day traffic varied, Rhett’s habits were like clockwork. Every Thursday for the last two months, he landed in the quiet North Side bar for a pint, a sandwich, and an argument with Paul. On his first few visits, Lenny—the bartender, cook, and host—was friendly but seldom joined in.
Rhett raised his eyebrows at Paul’s response: “If I can’t have my ideals, I don’t want to eat.”
Though thirteen minutes younger, Rhett looked at least a decade older than his twin. A perfect haircut kept his dark waves well above his ears and flawlessly arranged. His business casual attire could land him on the cover of a men’s fashion magazine, and he would sometimes wear a tailored suit for no particular reason. Rhett trusted that there was power in appearances, and that his image was the foundation of his influence.
Rhett imagined that Paul could still pass for an undergraduate. A tattered flannel, most likely third-hand, hung out over cutoff khakis. His black curls were left to their own devices, and having an acute allergy to hairstylists, they now hung nearly to his shoulders.
At birth, the two were identical. Now, without close inspection, it would be hard to tell.
“Industry destroying communities is a great American legacy. Pittsburgh Steel. Niagara’s Love Canal. And now, lead in Flint, Michigan. They say the water here is recovering from the old days, but it’s still over the acceptable amount of mercury in the water. Why in the world does it make sense to give the frackers a pass? It’s an asinine repetition of the same damn story.”
Rhett leaned back and spun a pen across his fingers, his eyes on his brother. The men had been debating the natural gas industry in the Keystone State since they had arrived several months earlier. It was the perfect foil for their perspectives with its economic and environmental ramifications. Rhett could argue either side with finesse and convince anyone with ease. Anyone other than Paul. Rhett saw his brother’s point, as always, but it didn’t matter. Rhett aimed for victory, not higher ground.