Before this event, there was no real turmoil in the world, no extreme acts of violence. But it caused what Queen wanted to happen. A domino effect.
The act of violence against humanity turned people into rebels, naysayers, the brave, and the out spoken. People who protested Ifor, who rallied for their independence, who called for the gods to answer for their actions. And when the rallies hit their high point, the God’s Hand was sent in to end them.
All of this started because of a single event.
After the massacre, Brookes and Patrick were given the rank of lieutenant and kept their powers of the Touched. All the soldiers who survived were.
The missions got easier after the Saint Paul massacre. The riots they were sent to end,they were never sent with bean bags or tear gas. But just with bullets. They would always shut down the media before any word of what they’d done had gotten out.
Brookes never became fazed by the pleading anymore. They would always ask him, why? What had they done to deserve to die? Why was the hand of God crushing down on them? And when their eyes asked these questions, they were always answered with bullets.
After a few years of doing their deeds, Patrick broke. He and Brookes were sitting at a bar in some Asian country. He spoke to him as a brother by then, they’d been through a lot together. “I’m quitting.”
“What? Why?” Brookes asked.
“I…I can’t take this anymore. The slaughter.”
“It’s kind of late for that.”
“I’m coming up on my last month before I need to renew my term. I’m not signing the paperwork.”
Brookes looked at him. He couldn’t stop him. Once someone made the choice to leave, it was their own.
“I don’t care. I miss feeling something,” Patrick said as he stared into his empty whiskey glass. As a Touched, the alcohol did nothing anymore. “I miss the ability to drink my problems away.”
“Well…I won’t argue you out of it.” Brookes wondered why he was still in God’s Hand. He had enough money saved up from his years of service to retire for at least a few years. When you were killing people, the gods decided to pay you good. He really didn’t care for being an enemy of humanity.
Maybe it was because of Queen. He couldn’t imagine not feeling her again, touching her again, being lost in her bliss. He would kill himself if he couldn’t.
Patrick stood up. “See you later, my friend.” Patrick left the bar to go down his own dark path.
That was the last time Brookes saw Patrick before he was laid in the ground.
Brookes stared into his glass and swallowed it whole.
8
To Become Light
Ezekiel stood on top of a skyscraper, staring out at the tower of Ifor only a mile out. The day was hazy, blocking out the sunlight, painting the day gray.
“The god’s rule will fall. Tomorrow we will be the first humans to kill a god,” Ezekiel said.
The Omniscient Man walked up next to him.
Ezekiel continued, “I wonder how many gods I’ll kill before I die.”
“Don’t be so bleak, don’t count yourself out until you kill He himself,” the Omniscient Man said.
“Death is an inevitability for all us normal folk, Mr. Omniscient. There’s no avoiding it. It’s just a matter of how many I can take down with me,” Ezekiel said with a smile.
…
Brookes stared up at the ceiling fan. Watching it turn the seconds away. He sat in a chair in the main room of the building. Six members of his new team were in the room with him. They lay around just as lazily as he was.
It was bullshit. They were just regular people Queen had rounded up to help him. She promised him a team of Touched. But she backed out because she claimed that Svante was looking at her every move. She couldn’t move around her army of Touched without alerting him.
Yet, she expected him to work as efficiently as ever with a team of incompetent jobbers. He was tasked with abducting Kevan and August’s respective families and laying low enough to not capture the attention of the other gods.
So, now, he just sat staring at the ceiling fan waiting for the hours to tick away.
…
A mile away from the house, a guard stood in the dirt road leading up to the place, smoking a cigarette. He was texting someone. It was the only thing to do to pass the time on his shit duty.
A few hundred yards away someone stared at the guard through an iron sight. Kevan lay in the grass beside August, aiming his rifle at the man. The trees covered them.
“I don’t think you’ll hit him from here,” August whispered.
Kevan adjusted his shoulder and breathed in. The man was in his sights. Kevan remembered back to the time he and his father went hunting. He was only twelve when he took his first life.
He remembered laying down in this grass, watching, waiting. He told his father that he was bored but his father had told him that “Patience was a virtue the gods gave us. Wait and they will come to us.”
It took a few hours before a doe came into his sights. Patrick sighted it for him and Kevan aimed down his scope. Waiting for the perfect moment before he took the shot.
The guard was a doe, sitting, waiting for the perfect moment to die. A gunshot echoed and the guard fell dead.
“Point taken,” August said. They waited for a few minutes to make sure the sound didn’t alert anybody and ran to the body.
“Walkie talkie, 9mm rounds, and not anything else of use,” Kevan said as he searched the man’s body.
“Hurry up, they’re going to notice he’s missing.”
“What about the radio?”
“Take it with us.”
Kevan shoved the bullets into a bag he carried. It was filled with C4, grenades, and ammunition.
They walked beside the road, in the trees, so as not to be seen.
Kevan said, “Have you wondered if this was all pointless?”
“Kevan, I lived my entire life as if everything was pointless.”
“No, I mean what we’re about to do. We’re screwed if the soldiers are Touched.”
“Touched, huh? I heard about those guys. What was it, they were normal people touched by the hands of a god or something?”
“Yeah. We won’t be able to kill them if they are.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”
“We’ll see? It’s that kind of logic that gets people killed, August.”
“Use your head. If you were able to kill that guard then I think the odds would be in our favor.”
Kevan stared at his feet as they walked. He was right. “There will be at least one Touched there. I’ll deal with him myself.” Kevan pulled a sharp stone out of his pocket and picked up a thick tree branch and clipped it to the bag he was carrying.
“I don’t feel like seeing anyone else die, Kevan. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Don’t you either.”
“Let’s go over the plan.”
They were a family of killers now. Kevan was surprised how easy it came to him.
…
They approached the house; it was a large place, surrounded by the trees but only one floor tall. Kevan and August watched from the trees. There were no guards on the outside, no cameras, no nothing to prevent unwanted company. The windows were boarded up but not perfectly so. If they could get close they could look inside through the cracks.
“I guess we were wrong. They weren’t expecting us,” August said.
“We could still catch them by surprise. We need to figure out where to plant the explosives. We’re going to have to get a closer look so we don’t set them off by—”
“Jack, report in.” The radio went off.
“Shit! Turn it down,” August whispered.
Kevan lowered the volume. “What are we going to do?”
“Wait, this could work in our favor.”
After a few minutes, two guards walked out of the front door. “Fucker better have remembered to charge it,” one of the guards said. They
walked down the path and out of sight.
“Two less guards to worry about, that gives us about thirty minutes. Come on.” August motioned.
They ran to the side of the building and slammed against the wall. They froze. Maybe they were a little too gung ho.
August crept up to one of the windows and looked inside. It was a large room, there were about six guards in it. All lazing around.
“Six guards, they’re not alert. Plant one here.”
Kevan planted some c4 on the window. They went window to window, only planting some on the back windows. They didn’t see Luna, Sara or Kevan’s kids. But there were two windows they couldn’t see into. So, they assumed that they were in the completely boarded-up rooms and moved the explosives away from those areas.
Kevan and August cocked their guns and moved back to the front of the house. Kevan held a detonator in his hand. “Are you ready for this?”
…
Brookes was getting tired of staring at the ceiling. He stood up and walked to the back of the building. He walked down a long hallway and through the door at the end of it.
The door hit a light machine gun on the ground. The bullets for the thing were scattered around the room. Brookes looked at his only soldier in the room. “I thought I told you not to—”
A ding interrupted his thoughts. He looked at Sara in the corner, with her phone in her hand.
Brookes looked at her in shock. The guards didn’t take her cell phone. The stupid fucks. “What the fuck—”
An explosion shook the building and then screams rang out. Another one went off closer and Brookes ducked down.
…
August burst through the front door with his pistol out. Smoked and shouting filled the hall. A guard popped out of the smoke, dazed and confused. August fired and the man dropped.
The hallway turned to the right. August hugged the wall and Kevan came right after him. The smoke was starting to clear. August motioned that he was moving forward.
As soon as he turned the corner, he saw two guards running toward him. He dropped one instantly but the other raised his gun to fire and—
A shot rang out in August’s ear and the guard fell. A shell fell next to him. He looked beside him and Kevan gave him a nod.
“Thanks for the ear damage,” August said rubbing his ears.
“At least you’re not dead.”
They approached the door at the end of the hallway. If what August remembered was true, then this would open into the main room.
“This is it,” Kevan said.
They had five more guards left. August hoped they wouldn’t do anything stupid.
“On three.” The door exploded into wood shards. August and Kevan fell back.
“Come on out, Kevan. Don’t worry, I won’t shoot you.”
August looked at Kevan, who was brushing woodchips off of himself. August mouthed “don’t do it” to him.
Kevan saw an overturned stone table, behind that was the hole in the wall they created, with scattered body parts. “Take out his weapon. He’s the Touched.” Kevan clipped a grenade onto his back belt loop.
August nodded.
Kevan ran and leapt for the table. Bullets whirled past him as he slammed onto the ground and slide behind the table. At the same time, August ran into the room and turned toward Brookes and unloaded his clip at Brookes.
He kept firing until he heard a click. August stood staring at Brookes who turned his gun on him. “You didn’t think that would work, did you?” He tried to cock his gun. “The hell?”
He shook it and there was rattling. A bullet was lodged in the release. “Well played,” Brookes said and dropped the gun. August reloaded his pistol and pointed at him.
“August, go find Sara, Luna and my kids,” Kevan said standing up. “He’s mine.”
“You sure? Is this the Touched you were talking about? I could—”
“Go.”
August stared at Brookes. There was a door next to him. The only other door there was besides the one behind Brookes. August went through it.
Kevan stared at Brookes. “I thought you said you wouldn’t shoot me.”
“All is fair in love and war. How about a one-on-one, no tricks this time. I promise. I still have a bone to pick with you and it’d be easier to beat the rage out than it would be to unleash it in bullets.”
Kevan dropped his bag and his rifle and put up his fists. This was the only way to defeat him. “Bring it.”
…
August ran down the hall. It was empty; there should’ve been more guards. In front of him was a turn in the hall to the left. If he remembered correctly, the far wall was the end of the building. Something went off in the back of his head. He was about to approach the turn. This wasn’t right. He looked on the ground and saw a bullet round. He picked it up and threw it at the far wall.
Hundreds of bullets ripped into the spot where it landed. He didn’t have any grenades on him.
Shit.
...
Kevan approached Brookes. Brookes charged him and Kevan jumped out of the way. Kevan swung at Brookes as he recovered.
Brookes moved fast and weaved past his punches. He hopped back laughing. “Come on, Kevan. I killed your mother.”
Kevan took the bait and jumped for his legs. He grabbed them and lifted Brookes up and Brookes elbowed him hard in the back and Kevan dropped him.
As Kevan keeled over, Brookes’ knee smashed into his face and a fist sent Kevan flying across the room.
Kevan landed hard. He spat up blood onto the hardwood floors and held his chest. Something was broken inside him.
…
August sat against the wall. Shit. He didn’t know how he was going to get past them. Kevan had all the explosives on him. He only had his trusty Glock.
He heard whispers in the hall and then slow footsteps. He saw the man’s shadow on the adjacent wall. August readied his pistol and as the man was about to turn the corner, August jumped out and filled him with lead.
Before the machine gun rounds could hit him, August leapt back out of the hall. He sat back against the wall. There were two of them behind the machine gun, they sat in front of a closed door. The door where Sara should be.
He needed to get past them. He looked around. He had nothing. Just a pistol.
“Come on out,” the guard said.
No way in hell.
There was a hole in the wall where the machine gun was shooting. It led into another room. August looked closer. A storage room. Full of gas canisters.
August wondered how stupid they really were.
He stepped back, nearly far enough to hear the fighting in the main room. He took off his jacket and balled it up. He hoped it work.
He threw it into the other hall, near the hole in the wall.Bullets tore into it and then he heard a ping. A canister rocketed out and down the other hall and then he heard a boom that shook the house.
…
Kevan stared at Brookes, who was waiting for him to get up. Kevan felt stupid. He needed to think of something, he needed to concentrate.
He felt his handgun’s cold metal against his back. It couldn’t kill Brookes but he could use it. Kevan struggled to his feet.
“You’re going to have to try harder than that,” Brookes said.
Kevan put up his hands again and looked at the wood branch on the floor. This time he let Brookes move first. Brookes’ fist flew at him in a blur, but Kevan stayed calm.
Kevan dodged his fist like a swan, ducking and weaving past his attempted blows. Waiting for the perfect opening. And found it. Kevan’s fist flew at Brookes face.
Brookes saw through it and leaned forward. Kevan’s fist skidded across his face as Brookes fist laid into Kevan’s shoulder.
The hit spun Kevan but as he spun around, he brought his leg up flying into Brookes’ face.
Blood and cartilage exploded in Brookes’ nose as he stumbled back. But he recovered quickly and leapt for Kevan, yelling.
; Silver flashed in Brookes’ face as Kevan pulled out his pistol and fired at Brookes’ face. Brookes jerked right and slipped.
Before he could hit the floor, a rod of wood smashed into his face and Brookes fell down limp.
Kevan dropped the broken branch onto the floor and bent over to catch his breath, rubbing his shoulder.
A moan came from Brookes.
“Still not dead?” Kevan asked.
Brookes jumped up as if nothing had happened. He wiped his face with his shirt. “Nice trick. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced pain.”
“Now experience death, fucker.” Kevan raised his arms again.
Brookes laughed. “After all the shit I’ve done and been through, I would’ve never expected to hesitate at the sight of a gun. Maybe I do still have some humanity left, after all.” Brookes raised his hands. “But it’s not going to happen again.”
Kevan had one play left.
Hands met in the middle as they fought. Fist and elbows flew. As Brookes’ fist hurled at Kevan, Kevan dodged and danced around them. Brookes did the same.
In fact, that was all Kevan was doing. He was on the defense. In his year of training, he had learned how to move to the dance of a fight, but not much else.
He was getting tired. Brookes was a machine, he didn’t move one foot out of place and didn’t slow down, at all.
Kevan’s body couldn’t keep up.
Brookes kicked back Kevan’s leg and sent a fist into Kevan’s gut. Shit. Kevan saw it as it approached. He was about to meet his end.
One more play.
Kevan reached around his back as Brookes fist cratered into his stomach. Blood erupted from Kevan’s lips as his body went flying across the room.
Leaving an activated grenade in his place.
Brookes’ smile was wiped off his face as it went off.
Dust and debris flew into the air as the heat from the explosion covered Kevan.
The smoke was settling, there was a ringing in Kevan’s ear. He struggled and failed to get up. Blood dripping from his lips.
The Men Who Killed God (Sinner of the Infinite Book 1) Page 12
