“No!” Gina lunges in his direction, refraining from making contact with his body sure to penetrate the layers of her skin with its heat. Instead, she locks eyes with him, standing only a few feet away. Paralyzing his frame, his memories and deeds transfer to Gina, her body convulsing with each heinous image—even seeing, reliving her own rape. Hell Hound’s fury with her control over his body musters, combusting internally. His energy along with the venom of his soul transfers to Gina through her eyes, her body scorching, glowing bright red. Tony pushes his shield through her, ricocheting the heat back to Hell Hound.
“Ahh!” he lets loose a thunderous growl, trembling the ground beneath them. Marks holds Aubrey up, her petite frame losing its balance. Hell Hound releases a spontaneous fireball. Unable to control its trajectory, it spirals out of control in Max’s direction. He ducks in the nick of time, the flaming sphere slamming against and forming a crater in the stone wall behind him. “Ice queen…” Hell Hound demands.
Emily engages her wiles of telekinesis, holding every Vigilare in the room hostage with the exception of the hellish one. Idling in their bodies, Gina, Tony, Max and Aubrey roar internally, their voices muted. Her powers ineffective on humans, Dr. Godfrey and Marks look to one another for direction. Hell Hound, now free of Gina’s hold, hoists her angrily over his shoulder.
“DeLuca!” Marks yells, bravely running at the monster. Hell Hound delivers a swift blow to his chest knocking him clear across the room, breaking a multitude of his ribs as his back flings against the stone wall before dropping him harshly to the floor.
Dr. Godfrey flings his hands up to his shoulders, palms out, a sign of retreat. Hell Hound emits a sinister laugh, flitting his eyes in Dr. Godfrey’s direction, cracking the lenses of his bifocals for good measure before disappearing into the night.
CHAPTER 17
Gina awakes in a dark, hollow room, her head pounding, her body at a full torturous ache. The sound of approaching footsteps accompanied by a dim light call her attention. She rests on an uncomfortable, cold mechanical table, her limbs shackled in steel at her wrists and ankles. She struggles against the restraints at the sight of an IV inserted on the insides of both her forearms, the color crimson red running through the lines that connect to a pump clicking furiously.
“There. There,” a familiar voice patronizes her.
She looks to the man stepping from the shadows, his hair thick, wavy and dark accenting his piercing blue eyes. Eyes that once were kind and lively, now appear dark and untouched. “Lon,” she whispers reaching for him, her hand stifled by the irons.
“We meet again, my sweet Brianna.” He monitors the filtration and transfusion of her blood. “Or is it, Gina?” He flashes her a wicked smile.
She says nothing, only watching him as he moves about his station. Her mind whirls with a million questions, her emotions raw and confused.
He eyes her somewhere between adoration and loathing. “You’re curious. What am I doing, and why? You’re afraid of me,” he says, slightly offended. “You always were such an easy read. Only liars are efficient at hiding their true expressions.” He attaches a syringe to a port along the IV line.
She looks frightened at the milky white substance in the syringe attempting to maneuver her body away from it, only to be corralled by the unforgiving shackles.
“I saw you with him.” Lon pushes the contents of the syringe through the IV.
Gina watches it travel through the line approaching the juncture of the needle insertion site, disappearing into her system. Beep, beep, beep goes the monitor measuring her heart rate, its pace increasing fervently.
“The great detective,” Lon continues, indulging in an elaborate exhale. “Gronkowski,” he fully enunciates, the lineage factor laced with distaste. “I got a joke for ya.” He sits on the stool next to the table upon which she lies, a provoking grin surfacing. “A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender, ‘Have you heard the latest Pollock joke?’ The bartender replies, angrily, ‘No. And I’ll have you know I’m Polish.’ ‘That’s okay,’ says the man, ‘I’ll talk slow.’” Lon chuckles, low and sinisterly.
She does not react, only inspects him further now that he lingers closer to her. A hand-shaped scar laces the front of his neck to include four elongated finger marks on one side, a single thumbprint on the other. The skin red and puffy, most likely a significant burn. “What happened?” she asks with concern.
“You get too close to the fire, you’re bound to get burned,” he summarizes.
Heavy footsteps echo down the corridor. Gina’s eyes dart toward the sound. “Hey Boss,” the familiar voice calls. “We got a visitor.” Manny Briggs appears devoid of his Hell Hound persona, a regular Joe with his shoulder-length greasy hair and spider web neck tattoo.
Gina fights against her restraints calling on her Vigilare powers. Grinding her wrists into the cold steel she attempts to make herself bleed to amplify her transformation. Manny Briggs laughs menacingly.
“Silence!” Lon demands, his voice verging on the same distortion as Manny’s when he is Hell Hound.
“I think you need to meet this one,” Manny argues as respectfully as he can muster.
Lon shifts his neck from side to side, agitated. “Can’t you see I’m busy.”
“But...”
“Go! Now,” he barks, silencing Manny who swiftly pivots, exiting from the vicinity. He refocuses to Gina. Her chest heaving, her eyes puzzled at her body’s disobedience. “‘What one man giveth, another taketh away,’” Lon quotes rising from his stool, pacing around her bed. The crimson viscous substance in her IV lines is now replaced with clear saline, a flush.
“Lon, what’s going on? Why is he here? Why are you doing this!” Gina demands.
His jaw clenching, he responds through gritting teeth, “You were supposed to wait for me.”
“Wait for you? I thought you were dead.” Her green eyes fill with tears.
“How convenient for you. And the great detective.” He jerks the needles from her arms covering them with gauze, his body now lurching over hers.
“They told me you were dead,” her train of thought reeling with the deceitful doctors, Ryan and Godfrey. She strains to raise up, attempting to meet his torso with her own.
Her closeness affecting him, his chest falling torridly up and down, miming hers. “And you believed them. I never would have given up on you.” His mouth inches from hers, he closes his eyes, refusing to give in to the urge to taste her. Wiping his hand over his lips, he backs away. “The four-eyed freak and his bossy sidekick...they’ll get theirs, too, Sugar,” he bites out the once tender moniker for her.
“What have they done to you?” She looks at him, her expression a mixture of pity and confusion.
“They have done nothing,” he seethes. Grabbing the pump beside her, he flings it across the room, shattering it to pieces against the wall. He crouches over her aggressively. “You did this!” His anger volatile, she watches the irises of his blue eyes begin to glow, a vibrant angry red.
“Cerberus,” Gina expels, realizing the true identity of the symbolic three-headed monster.
Lon regains control of himself zapping the glow from his eyes, pushing off the table away from her. “Quite the detective, aren’t you? Vanguard PD,” he states knowingly. “Where you met the great Gronkowski.”
“You’re the center,” Gina deduces. “Briggs is a flank. We’re missing one,” she prods. “Who is it!” Her anger on the rise to think he would team up with, let alone employ her rapist. She struggles vehemently against the restraints, yet again attempting to call on her Vigilare powers. Working herself into an unproductive frenzy, her muscles fatigue, collapsing against the table.
“It’s gone, Brianna...Vigilare,” he coaches calmly, looking at the full vials of her siphoned blood. “Reserved for someone I find deserving.” He taps his fingers though
tfully against his chin. “How about that feisty dark-haired girl you run around with? The power-hungry one. Emily...I believe is her name.” He chuckles. “She really gets under your skin, doesn’t she?”
Her eyes turning from hurt to vengeful, she maintains her breathing calm and cool. “Go ahead. Give it to her. You two would be a spiteful little match made in Heaven.”
He smirks, happy to have pulled a rise out of her. “You always were a prideful one, Brianna. Never thought twice about biting off your nose to spite your face.” He circles her table. “Come to think of it, that’s why we’re in this predicament to begin with. You just couldn’t let that case lie, could you? Had to be the big hero lawyer. Sacrificed your family. For what? Pride? Notoriety? Principle?” He chuckles. “You and the great detective. That was like watching egos on steroids. One pushing the other. An exemplary display of wills,” he indulges sarcastically. “No wonder you couldn’t wait to jump in bed with him. Hell, he’s so damn appealing, if I didn’t have an appetite for a woman…” he pauses, stroking her auburn hair. She jerks her head away further offending him. His eyes fall to the shiny silver crucifix hanging from her neck. Her skin filling with goosebumps under his hand as he moves the pendant from side to side about its chain.
“Lon,” she whispers his name, his touch warm and familiar, one she never imagined herself feeling ever again. Her eyes appeal to him, believing the sweet man she once loved still lingers somewhere in his disturbed soul.
“I still remember the look on your face when you opened that box Christmas morning,” his voice softening, his touch tender. “I came for you.” His eyes settling on hers, he leans down fully breathing her in, her scent momentarily vexing him.
“Let me out of these things,” she pleads, her monitor racing. Ga-gung...ga-gung...ga-gung, heartbeats for him, for what they had. “Just let me touch you. It’s still there, Lon. You’ll see. Let me hold you.”
“My sweet, Brianna.” Heat radiates from her face onto his, causing him to ache. “I came for you,” he laments. “And you were with him,” his voice distorts once again, a beam of violent red whirls about the room. He jerks the crucifix from her neck, standing upright placing a formidable distance between them. He clears his throat walking from the table, the pendant dangling from his fisted hand. “Are you hungry?”
“No, I’m not hungry,” her voice trembles, her expression begging an explanation for such a mundane question.
“Suit yourself.” He adjusts a surveillance camera in the corner of the room making sure it resides on her. “And to answer your question, my other flank,” he enunciates her term, “is our son.”
She gasps at the urgency with which her lungs require oxygen. “Braydon? He’s alive?” She jerks at her restraints. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, the monitor races with the sudden shot of endorphins to her system.
“I believe you’ve already been reacquainted. Although, much like you, he has an alias these days,” Lon explains nonchalantly. “Maxim Kiesel. Sure is a handsome thing, isn’t he?” Lon chuckles. “I dare say he takes after his father.”
“Max? But, he’s a young man. Braydon would only be ten years old. How is this possible!” Her irons clink and clang as she desperately attempts to escape them.
“It wouldn’t be suitable for a child to be a Vigilare. Not that I would expect you to understand the premise of a moral compass, seeing how you seem to have lost yours…married to one man, sleeping with another.” He meticulously sweeps the scattered pump pieces into a pile, discarding them into a wastebasket.
“Lon,” her voice pleading. “Take me to him. You have to undo this. What have you done to him? He’s your son!” she screams, her body in a full-fledged quake. “My baby,” she cries.
He leans coolly against the wall adjacent to her. “How’s it feel, Brianna? To want something that doesn’t belong to you anymore?”
“You son-of-a-bitch,” she sobs, her body fatiguing, giving in to the table beneath her.
“Now is that any way to talk to your husband?” He turns walking from the room. “I’ll be back to check on you.” Her cries echo down the long corridor.
CHAPTER 18
The next morning after a breakfast Gina refused to eat, much like an eight-year-old eyes down a plate of peas, she accompanies Lon to his lab. She wears the same clothes she sported the night before, a black formfitting sweater, black skinny pants accentuating the toned muscles of her thighs, their ends tucked into knee-high black leather boots. Her disheveled auburn hair lies wildly against her shoulders and down her back. Her hands, cuffed at her waist, are attached to a steel chain that lines the contours of a hip belt.
“Is this really necessary?” she questions the noisy accoutrement as she walks the hallway beside Lon. “What am I really capable of, now that you’ve thieved from me my Vigilare pedigree?”
“Vigilare pedigree?” he scoffs. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?” He manipulates several heavy duty master locks from a large steel door. “And don’t insult my intelligence. I’ve seen your training. You’re quite capable, Vigilare pedigree or not.” Pushing his weight against the door, its frame creaks opening to a large spacious room, something straight out of a DC comic film, blinding fluorescent ceiling lights and new-age technology abound. Lon extends his hand, waiting for Gina to enter.
“Such a gentleman,” she comments sarcastically, causing Lon to chuckle, noting she hasn’t lost her sharpness. She walks into the room taking in the robotic forms, levers, buttons and simulations. “Must have cost ETNA quite a mint, setting you up like this.”
“ETNA?” He dismisses. “You never give me enough credit.”
“I didn’t say they were the brains behind the operation.” She reflects on his mechanical engineering degree.
“Those sloughs...all the money and the resources in the world...and they still had to barter with the grating Dr. Ryan.” His voice full of contempt.
“Barter?”
“Me, and Braydon.” His hand trails a posterboard of newspaper clippings highlighting their deaths, the same clippings gracing the wall of Manny Briggs’ office. “We were the trade-off. Seems everybody wanted you, Brianna.”
She eyes him searching for the truth in his expression, now wondering if she knows the truth at all.
“She should’ve known better. You never make deals with a government agency. Deals are a diversion, facilitating a fake sense of trust, loyalty. They were never going to stop until they got what they wanted.” He looks at her, the golden egg.
“Were?” she questions. “Why do you continue to talk about them as if they are past tense?”
He grins. “Because they are.”
“You expect me to believe you’ve terminated the entire ETNA sector?”
“Believe what you’d like.” He shrugs his shoulders, drawing her attention to his neckline where her crucifix now lies. “They became too much of a liability for the government. Ask your congressman. He’ll gladly tell you ETNA division is dead. Its twenty-two members nonexistent.” He pauses calculating. “Well, twenty-one with the death of Dr. Bernard Shaw.” He looks at her shrewdly. “Wonder what happened to him? One day he’s harboring Vigilare blood, and the next he’s expired.”
“These people don’t have family, friends...no one who’s looking for them? No one to be suspicious about their immediate disappearance?” She walks to a thick, filmy glass encasement attempting to identify what may be on the other side.
“No different from the elite ranks of the CIA or the FBI. If they don’t technically exist, then even in death, they never were.” He walks to her. “You want to see what’s on the other side?”
“I don’t know.” She turns to him. “Do I?” she asks reprimanding, fearing another twisted surprise.
“Soldiers,” he says, his inflection scheming. “Hounds of Hell.”
“
And you’re the gatekeeper?” she quips. “Guess that makes Manny Briggs your lapdog.” She eyes him disappointed.
“Takes a guy like Manny, ruthless and corrupt, to keep them contained,” he confirms.
She freezes, eyeing the camouflaging glass. “You’re serious?” she baffles. “You’re barricading the remaining members of ETNA? What do you plan to do with them?”
“The same thing they did to me. To you. To our son,” his voice seethes. He turns on a row of television monitors, showing her the inside of the glass encasement. Scientists, all garbed in white lab coats, lean productively over microscopes, centrifuges and other laboratory testing technology. Manny Briggs—Hell Hound—walks militantly up and down the aisles, yelling and sporadically displaying physical force to the frightened, manic worker bees, shooting off fireballs at his will, commanding fear and obedience from every soul in the room. “Ironic, isn’t it? They are now slaves to the beast they created.” His eyes twinge with a hint of shame, quickly diverting from Gina’s. “Some of the highest IQs in the world in that one room. Yet, all of them greedy enough to give up simple reasoning in exchange for an attempt at immortality, willing to believe they are the exception. Mary Shelley taught them nothing.” He pounds his hand against his chest. “I will teach them everything. Some manners, namely. Greedy, power-hungry souls need to know they cannot interfere with a man’s destiny and go unpunished.”
“What do they do? I mean, what are they doing...right now?” Gina eyes them madly at work.
“They made me. Braydon. Our Vigilare pedigree,” he uses her term. “They even made you. Where do you think the round-faced hematologist got his information...his blueprint? Certainly not of his own paranoid schizophrenic devices.” Lon clicks on the intercom linking to the interior of the glass encasement. He speaks sternly to Manny Briggs, “Number seven needs to be awakened.”
2 Brooklyn James Page 17
