“What will you do with that?” Evelyn asked.
Wayne raised an eyebrow.
“You are very intuitive, Fury. You've guessed I'll do something with the rock, in effect.”
“What?!” She demanded.
Wayne raised a hand to shut him up; suddenly he seemed more serious than ever. His face was a stony mask of discord. His black eyes twinkled. He turned to the other two men, bound and muffled with duct tape. Ed rolled to one side like a worm, shying away from his path, with deep horror on his face.
Wayne straightened it unwillingly.
“Quiet,” he growled at him, and then ripped the tape from his mouth.
Ed shouted.
Wayne gave him a slap. Ed was semi-conscious, stunned. Wayne climbed into his lap, circled his legs with his calves, so that he did not make sudden movements in search of freedom. From that angle, with Wayne's back in the middle, Evelyn could not see what Ed was doing to Ed, but he did see how the boy's legs frantically fluttered before he was immobile. He also heard muffled mumbles and choking coughs.
Finally, Wayne turned away from Ed with an imperious and satisfied expression.
Ed conferred a petrified image, when Evelyn finally saw it. His posture was stiffer than usual, his eyes were darker and his skin as white as paper. Wayne proceeded to remove the moorings from his hands and feet. Once free, Ed remained in a state of lifelessness.
“What did you... do?” Eve stammered.
Wayne laughed.
“Doctor Silence has brought some secrets of the future,” he said later. “I present you with a pyxi-human fusion. Although I prefer to call it pyxis'qe'rut. He turned to the gloomy boy, waved his hand, and said, “Att-li.”
The pyxirian-language lessons with Professor Kerr allowed her to understand what Wayne had said to Ed at the time. And he had said: “Get up.”
And Ed got up. His eyes turned bright black as if they had been replaced by obsidian rocks. His skin turned solid gray. The muscles in his arms widened, tensing the sleeves of his jacket. And there was a spurt, suddenly he was taller and stockier than before. Evelyn stared at him in stupor. He was no longer the Ed she had known.
Wayne approached the pyxis’qe’rut and muttered an order in the pyxirian-language. Evelyn translated it mentally. “Go for the Governor Schmidt,” was what he said. “And do your duty.” —Ed nodded and left the room taking firm military steps.
Then they heard the rumble of the door when the one who was Ed McQuinn closed it.
Wayne turned to Evelyn.
Schmidt, she thought. Ed will go for Schmidt instead of the Russian chancellor, the pyxis plan was still in progress. Evelyn felt as if she had received a kick in the stomach.
“It would have been easy to send your father to accomplish that mission,” Wayne said, smiling. “But I have reserved a more important task for Mr. White.” He rummaged his pocket and pulled out another rock. “A much more important task.”
“No,” Evelyn shrieked. “No, no, no!”
“Yes, yes,” laughed Siphrus Wayne. “Mr. White has reserved the task that will define the absolute triumph of the pyxis.” He paused theatrically. “Murder Fury. To you.” He looked at Evelyn.
The reaction of the girl’s father was the expected one: he began to shake violently, like a bear caught in a trap, writhing and growling. Unexpectedly, that bear broke free of the moorings that were holding him and threw himself on Wayne. Wayne did not expect it, fell back with an expression that Evelyn found particularly satisfying.
Both men began to fight body to body on the ground. The rock she had held before Wayne rolled at Evelyn's feet the moment her father fiercely attacked the other. She could only see, but not be part of the contest. She was still tied on my wrists and ankles, motionless. She shook herself again, maybe she had the same effect as her father. But she only got hurt. When Evelyn looked back, her father was on top of Wayne projecting a blow, and another, to the face.
Then Evelyn noticed that her father still had his ankles tied with the rope. That made him lose his balance, and he went sideways. Wayne took advantage of the moment and stuck an elbow in his side and then circled to get out of reach. Evelyn's father had a grimace of intense pain on his face. She couldn’t go to him, although she wanted him more than anything.
“Look at this,” Wayne said, his voice startled by the fight.
Evelyn noticed him. “No, no.”
Wayne had the defibrillator and was pointing to his father. He laughed
“What do you think will happen when I shoot your father with this thing?” He asked Evelyn, looking at the girl’s father. “Will it cross him from side to side as it happens with the pyxis'avalh? Or will he explode like a huge bag of blood? Guess, Fury, and maybe let live to witness the Great Catastrophe.” He grinned underneath with clenched teeth. “I’ll count to three, come on!”
“Don’t!” She cried.
Wayne pointed to his father.
“One…”
Evelyn shook herself, writhed, and cried out. None of that served.
“Two…”
She looked for her father's gaze, for the last time, but he turned his back at her on side.
Then she noticed Wayne, who had a red dot glowing in the exact space between his eyebrows. Evelyn held her breath.
“Three…”
There was a shot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Wayne’s head exploded, spreading blood and brains.
Evelyn had sighted in advance the red light that was pointing at the man’s brow, so she had time to hold her breath, close her mouth and eyes. The scintillating red laser swept through the glass window at the exact spot where Evelyn had torn the cardboard plate. Blood burst around her like a bag of blood. It splashed the old carpet on the floor, the long piece of furniture, the dark screen of the television; it gave color to the gray walls and fanned the white of the flared lamp that hung from the ceiling. Evelyn’s face and part of her chest were also spattered with blood.
The next instant was one of complete shock. The girl opened her mouth and inhaled a deep breath; there she smelled the metallic taste of blood that ran down her face like fat ruddy caterpillars. There was a muffled sound: it was Wayne’s lifeless body collapsing belatedly. Evelyn crouched more toward the corner, shying away from the decapitated body.
After that, Eve did not know exactly how much time passed until the agents broke into the room. Evelyn was in a deep state of shock. She raised her eyes, vibrantly, and found Rhys trying to pull her to her feet. Eve’s legs gave up on the first attempts.
“Evelyn, are you okay?” The girl asked in a voice that seemed distant, even though she was really close to her.
“Obviously not,” Tadhg snapped. “Look at her.”
Evelyn took a deep breath and regained consciousness. She noticed that Tadhg and Juno were helping Mr. White to his feet. When the imposing man turned around, he was greeted by the arms of his daughter who rushed fervent with excitement and relief. Her father had a pale face immaculate, barely a hint of splashing blood on his left cheek and neck.
“What will we do with that?” Juno asked.
Eve sighted at the corner of her eye that was pointing her finger at the headless body.
“Oh my God!” Rhys shouted.
Evelyn turned away from her father and turned to the girl; her expression of intense terror was just as Eve had imagined it.
“What's going on?” Tadhg inquired.
“It's Wayne,” Rhys said, and pointed to the knitted cap that held the dreadlocks intact.
Everyone looked at Evelyn, who nodded.
“He was possessed by a pyxis’avalh,” she proceeded to explain in a feverish voice. “He has taken my father captive and...” —“Ed,” she thought horrified as she remembered how he was writhing in conversion.
“You were going to say Ed?” Tadhg said.
Evelyn looked at him.
“Yes. Wayne has turned him
into...” She forgot how he had called him. “He plans to attack Governor Schmidt.”
“Oh yeah?” He said it so carelessly that Evelyn’s nerves increased.
“Yes,” she said, almost shouting. “What's going on? And... Where’s Dawit?”
The agents exchanged glances.
“Evelyn.” Rhys stepped toward her, patiently, and handed her a rag that she took, deftly, out of nowhere. Eve started to draw blood from her face; while she did so, she noticed that Rhys was scrutinizing her with her eyes. “What exactly did Wayne do?” She asked.
Eve remembered Wayne’s words: “Doctor Silence has brought some secrets of the future.”
Of course, they did not know it. What Wayne had done to rekindle the olrut through Ed’s body was something that had never been seen, an event that only she had witnessed. She and her father. Then she proceeded to tell the agents, in summary, what had happened in previous moments. In turn, the agents of the future told Evelyn that Dawit had thrown himself on the trail of Ed after he left the house with a mysterious and chilling air; that had happened moments before Tadhg saw what was happening inside the house through the piece of cardboard that Eve had torn, and then proceeded to use the defibrillator to neutralize Wayne.
If Tadhg already knew that it was Wayne at the time of targeting him, then he had disguised well. He had even raised his eyebrows slightly, in surprise, when Rhys revealed the identity of the decapitated body.
“So he have you gone for him?” Evelyn barked when Tadhg had finished speaking.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“We must find them” snapped Rhys, alarmed. She had sat down on the furniture next to Evelyn’s father, who, with a disturbed gesture, drew the blood that had impregnated his cheek.
“Where?”
“I do not know.” She had a hand on Evelyn’s father's shoulder. “If Wayne has done what Evelyn said, that means we are facing a new and terrible threat.”
The silence reigned next. Tadhg was moving from side to side, like a restless animal, with low eyes and a frown as he could not, thinking. At that moment he looked so much like Evelyn’s father that she feared for a moment that Mr. White would raise his eyes and notice those similarities. It did not happen. Everyone waited for Tadhg to come up with some plan, and Evelyn wondered who had died and made him leader.
Tadhg stopped.
“First,” he said, looked at Evelyn. “We must put her safe.”
Evelyn reacted reluctantly to Tadhg’s words.
Then she looked at her hands: they trembled like a pair of gelatins, and the worst thing was that she couldn’t prevent that from happening. Everyone in the room had also seen it. She sighed deeply. She felt dejected, tired. She remained silent throughout the trajectory of the Agency.
If something was done unquestionably well by the agents of the future, the duties were distributed. Rhys was in charge of taking Evelyn and her father to the Agency’s facilities. Juno —who showed her discontent kicking Wayne’s lifeless body— had to take care of the blood disaster that was made in the living room where everything happened; although her discomfort was somewhat aroused when Rhys thought of calling Brian and his team to help them eliminate all the evidence. Tadhg’s duty was to find Dawit.
When the elevator doors opened, Claire and Professor Kerr warmly received them.
Caleb was among them, as concerned as if he had been part of the terrible encampment that afternoon. Sure, Eve did not dare to see him in the face after what she had done, though he might not remember what happened.
Evelyn and her father were taken to the clinic, where Claire took care of their wounds, broken ribs and carrying out all the relevant studies to ensure the welfare of both. Everything was fine, the doctor said later. Mr. White was a little dazed by what had happened, which was why he had kept quiet unconsciously all this time. In addition, the doctor said, he only had some bruises on his face, scrapes on his neck and a broken rib. Evelyn, on the other hand, was unscathed.
She had not had a chance to fight. She had done nothing to avoid much of what happened that afternoon. She had not defended Ed from the pyxis’avalh and had let down her guard, letting Wayne freeze her with a slap on the head. She had not done anything. Nothing.
And, on the other hand, she had made many mistakes. She felt that she had disappointed everyone, including herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Dawit will be fine?”
Rhys nodded.
“Yes. Dawit is very strong, he will overcome this.”
Evelyn attributed a bit of guilt to what had happened, so she did not dare to calm down until she saw the boy healthy and safe with her own eyes.
“Look,” Rhys said, taking her hands sweetly. “You don’t have to worry, let alone blame yourself for what happened. You were very brave. None of this is your fault. Yes, Doctor Silence. It was he who started everything. Look at me.” Eve looked at her, dazed; finding her reflection in the girl’s eyes caused a sting in her chest. “I’m telling you the truth. You will be a heroine.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Not now. But the day will come...”
“What if that day never comes?” Evelyn interrupted. “What if I decided that I do not want to be Fury?”
Rhys made a pout of pain, as if Evelyn's words had pierced his fragile heart like a dagger.
“I'm sorry...” she began to say.
“If there is no Fury,” Rhys said tremulously, “none of this will exist either. Tadhg and I will not exist.” She stared at her with infinite sweetness.
Then Evelyn thought she had a feeling like Rhys’s: a stab in the chest. She did not want to be the cause of the nonexistence of the brothers, she rather yearned to be part of them, because Evelyn did see them as true heroes. And a world without heroes was a cold and desolate place. She put her hand to her neck, where the reliquary that Rhys had given her rested.
Rhys also put her hand to her neck, not like imitating her, it was more like a reflection. Evelyn had given her the reliquary her father had given her days ago. It was a brief exchange, no one would notice the difference.
They were in Evelyn’s room at the Agency. Eve and Rhys were sitting cross-legged and barefoot, facing each other, like girls in a game. But nobody was playing. In any case, if that were the situation, Evelyn had already lost several races. At least Rhys was there to cheer her up.
“Claire says Dawit will be fine,” she continued, as if the recent conversation had not happened. She hunched a little and smiled like a child, despite her twenty-one years. Her good mood used to infect Evelyn, but this time it was not like that. “He has only lost a lot of blood and had to make at least a hundred stitches.”
“And that seems little to you?!” Eve exploded, shocked.
They looked at each other, a moment. The other, they laughed.
The laughter they brought for the next three minutes was better than a balm for Evelyn’s soul. She laughed until her eyes got wet, until the air in her lungs was gone.
That lazy laugh was smothering little by little when Eve remembered that Dawit had not been the only one affected. Ed had died, he died the instant that Wayne revived olrut through him. And maybe before that: when Evelyn dropped the rock that night and forgot to tell the agents what had happened.
Dawit reached Ed on several streets in the neighborhood where Evelyn lived. There was a confrontation, something terrible that some residents came to see with great horror; the two men fighting in the middle of the street with tremendous ferocity. Finally, Tadhg appeared, just as Ed was on Dawit and was strangled in front of all those people. Tadhg was out of Ed’s sight, so he could get to him from behind and break his neck. “He had incredible strength,” Tadhg said. “I was surprised that his vertebra had given way. The sound was chilling, but strange.”
Rhys asked him what he meant by that, and Tadhg replied, “Well, the sound was similar to what the olrut do when they are fragmented by the defibrillator
. I had to use all my strength, knowing in advance that her nature had been altered.” One more moment, and he would have suffocated Dawit. He added, also, as disturbing data, that the head separated from the body without spitting a single drop of blood. Tadhg explained: “Its interior was completely obsidian, the surface was the only human left in Ed.”
“Do you think about what Tadhg said?” Rhys asked, serious.
Evelyn nodded.
“Do not have serve my words to reassure your discomfort, right?” Rhys did not wait for an answer. “Apparently you are still the same, although it would be better to say that you are the same as in the future. You don’t change. You torture yourself to the point of satiety when you know well that nothing has been your fault, but that you could have done more.”
Was that exactly what happened with Evelyn? Yes.
Sometimes it surprised her how much Rhys knew her. Maybe after all if they were very close in the future.
“How did you find me?” Evelyn asked, partly to change the subject, partly because she wanted to know.
“It was not difficult to conclude that you were in that place.” Rhys smirked, though the brightness in her eyes conveyed a different message: hesitation. “Everyone heard when you said you would go for your father, with such alarm that it altered everyone's nerves. We returned to the Agency when we found Caleb confused wandering through the Library reading room.”
“You’re lying,” Evelyn snapped.
Rhys frowned.
“What?”
“You're lying,” she repeated. “How did you find me?”
Rhys was momentarily blinded. Slowly, he put his hand to the reliquary.
“There's a tracking chip in the locket I gave you,” he said. “I had to make sure nothing happened to you.”
“I thought you trusted my good judgment,” she snapped, angry.
“Yes, so it was.”
Days of Fury (Future Men Series Book 1) Page 23
