One looked up, directly at the Jaguar. Her father inhaled.
“Hey, Alarawn, you sick fuck. You came to watch us leave.” The man shot them the bird. “You’re gonna burn, you selfish prick.”
“Daddy?” Brooke could hardly breathe the word.
Thomas started the car and flung the shift lever into drive. Dirt and gravel kicked into the wheel wells. Looking over her shoulder, Brooke could see the man shouting. He bent over and picked something up from the parking lot. The rock narrowly missed their back window.
“Don’t listen to him. He’s angry,” Thomas said, patting his daughter on the leg. “I don’t blame him. Poor guy.”
Her father’s defense of the man was unsettling. She didn’t know all of the words that he hurled at them, but she knew they were hateful.
****
Over the years, Brooke had gotten used to outbursts like the one she experienced in the parking lot as a child. Leading the failing corporation wore her down, then built her back up with crocodile skin. She had decided she could do anything. More importantly, she would do anything to save the company.
The last time she was at the mill was soon after she inherited Alarawn Industries. Her parents’ graves were fresh, and she was figuring out how the hell to even begin running a multinational company. Ivy League business courses didn’t prepare her for what lay ahead.
Alarawn Industries had received an offer from a development firm to purchase the fallow ground. It was lowball, but maybe fair since it would cost twice the contract price to reclaim the brownfield. Even with the latest technologies, heavy metal removal was costly.
At the last minute, the investors got spooked and picked up land closer to The Waterfront—an old industrial spot that already had a Loew’s theater and all the stores one could imagine. With far more important details to attend to, Alarawn let the land sit.
Brooke reached into the passenger side and grabbed a wool beanie and a flashlight. She slid the medallion into the pocket of her puffy jacket.
Everything about the building looked tired and abused. An amateur Crips tag and an enormous penis were spray-painted on the building’s side. She grinned. Kids. A chain draped around the handles of the main entrance likely had kept people out for some time. Now a Master Lock sat broken in the dust. Mills like this were surprisingly popular among urban adventurers. Although that mostly consisted of teenagers looking for a place to get high, the trespass didn’t bother her much. If the old building could offer some amusement, so be it.
She pulled open the door and was hit by three decades’ worth of must. Flicking on the light, she stepped across the threshold.
The beam illuminated the manager’s office through a broken window. Apart from the thin layer of dust that covered everything, the office looked as if it were ready for a week’s work: papers neatly stacked in well-ordered piles, a pen lined up perfectly parallel with the edge of the desk. Even a coffee mug with the handle turned in for a left-handed employee filled the space. There was a certain sadness to the scene; Brooke couldn’t bring herself to look any longer. She switched the flashlight to her right hand and stuffed her dominant hand into her pocket. Cold metal reminded her why she had come. She drew the medallion out and held it inches from her face. It glimmered in the artificial light.
Brooke stared at the strange symbol, half expecting it to come alive. The curved lines were dynamic, penetrating the diamond shape at its center. She wondered if there was power in the place—in the medallion itself. Or if it was another false hope. Her slender hand curled around the ornate metal token. Foolish or not, it was an option she needed to try.
The crunching of concrete and broken glass echoed through the hall as she proceeded past the other offices. Water, filtered through cracks in the ceiling, made a pathway in the dirt on the floor. She pushed open a door and stepped into the mill.
Fresh footprints, likely from Elijah, led her toward a metal-grate staircase. It ascended from the plant floor to a platform overlooking the main work area. She climbed, hearing the metal groan beneath her feet. She trusted the metal like family. In ways, Pittsburgh steel was the Alarawn family’s backbone—the true patriarch. It wouldn’t let her down.
Crossing the plant from above, she found a spot where the railing was broken. Turning the light toward the fracture, she noticed the break was fresh, like the footprints. Oxidation hadn’t tarnished the exposed metal.
She shined the light over the edge into the blackness. It was tough to make out, but it looked as though a great weight had fallen, causing a disruption in the floor beneath. If Elijah had made the drop, she was surprised he walked away with as little injury as he had.
Finding another staircase, Brooked made her way down to the floor. Underneath the walkway, she discovered several lengths of broken metal—the missing piece of the guardrail. The cement at her feet was cracked.
In front of her was an open-hearth furnace. She placed her hand upon the large cauldron, the crucible, capable of containing boiling steel. But those fires were long dead. A cold chill ran up her arm.
With one hand on the furnace and another on the medallion, Brooke found herself praying—to her father, her grandfather, or God, she couldn’t say. But she begged for something to happen, anything. There was some secret here, she knew it. This was her factory, her legacy. Whatever happened to Elijah Branton, whatever power he possessed, it was meant for her.
She punched the cauldron. Pain surged through her hand. She hit it again, screaming. “It’s not fair. What the hell am I supposed to do?” Her cries echoed throughout the building, but the mill returned no answer.
An hour later she emerged from the abandoned factory. Tired, her knuckles bleeding, she sat in her car and laughed at her stupidity. Magic and demons. What bullshit. I must be truly desperate. Elijah’s transformation was real, that she didn’t doubt. But there must have been another explanation. She thought about their night together; his body, covered with bruises and strange burns. It was nicer than she expected, considering how out of shape he was. He was so anxious to be with her. It was nice to be that wanted.
Then she smiled as she remembered something else about that evening.
Pulling out her cell phone she typed a hasty message to Rex.
Mill was a bust but I have a new lead. I need you to find someone for me.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I went to you,
Knowing you were the one.
But now I know.
You don’t give a shit.
#pgh #WCW #61A
Sean hit the tweet icon and watched his latest poem float into the ether. It was terrible, like the rest. Unlike the others, it was heartfelt. His emotions had oscillated between anger and humiliation since his meeting with Willa. He stormed out of the bar, furious at yet another rejection. He could deal with the chemist’s rebuke, but he’d thought that his professor actually understood him. This was nothing like the hero stories he had read since his youth. He was ready to be trained by a master—prepared to be an apprentice. Sean needed to find a team.
Their betrayal stung.
Maybe I am just a kid.
His gift was taking shape. Auras danced around each person on the bus, and he tried to interpret the meaning of each. There was a certain attunement that each presented. Sean closed his eyes. Over the past several days he had started not only to see auras, but also to feel them. Vibrations emerged, struck him, and created images on the backside of his closed lids, like a bat’s radar.
Yet he remained incomplete. The chemist was right that his powers weren’t useful in a fight. But something in him was confident that he could learn to focus the energy that he received from others around him. The auras had pushed against his body for months; now he tried to gather them. If he could cull the power of others, multiply it, and send it back into the world, he might just be able to turn his discernment into something of value.
Right on schedule, 61A meandered around the bend, officially crossing the line into Oakland. S
ean closed his eyes and imagined the scene on Mount Washington. The camaraderie he felt with the others as they worked to subdue the molten monster was intense. For once in his life he was part of a greater whole, a vital organ. He needed to figure out a way to help them understand. He was not a liability but an asset. And he could be a determining factor over the powers descending upon the city.
Opening his eyes, Sean watched the lower part of Oakland pass by. Then, without warning, a darkness washed over him. The auras that had illuminated his commute dimmed, and he felt his emotions sucked away by an unseen force.
What the hell?
The bus pulled past a box truck, and the answer to his queries came into sight. Leaning against a black Lincoln on the side of Forbes Avenue stood the large bald man. Sean recognized him immediately. Although Sean could get no read on his aura, the intensity of its absence struck him like an oncoming train. Sean stared into the abyss.
“Stop the bus.”
The driver glanced in the rearview for a split second and then back toward the road.
“Now. Stop the fucking bus, now.”
“This is not a stop, sir,” a mechanical voice echoed.
Sean turned toward the doors, hands down at his side. The vibrations of the dimmed auras around him increased and surged through the student’s body. Focusing, he thrust his foot at the doors. Whether it was the power of the captured auras or just good old-fashioned adrenaline, Sean couldn’t be sure, but the doors flew open. Ignoring the stares of the onlookers, the boy dove from the bus and rolled out onto the concrete.
With the grace of a drunken ninja, Sean spun to his feet, face-to-face with the bald behemoth of a man. The man’s countenance was devoid of any response.
“Hello, Sean.”
Sean staggered backward a step. “You know me?” A feeling of importance rushed through his veins.
“Of course. You’re special—and I follow all of you. We nearly met the other night outside of Hillman Library. Sorry I was so rude. But, priorities, you know.”
Sean pictured the man reaching into his coat, and suddenly didn’t feel quite as confident as he had when he leapt from the moving bus. “I saw you take down that monster singlehandedly. You must have some power.”
The man placed his index finger to his lips. “Shhhh.” He smiled, which looked out-of-place on the granite face. “That needs to be our secret. You know what happens when secrets get out, don’t you? I wouldn’t be safe.”
Sean took another step back. He looked up and down the sidewalk. It was empty. A knot filled his stomach. “Who are you?”
“My job is to protect people like you.” The man halved the distance between them. “I know you want to help. You’ve been trying to figure out how to use your powers for good.”
“How do you know all of this?”
The man laughed. “Sean, with all that you’ve seen, would this really be the thing that sparks surprise? We keep track of all of you—all of us.”
“Like the X-Men?”
The man laughed again. “Yeah, something like that. Do you want to meet some of the others?”
Sean’s shoulders loosened. He stuck his scraped-up hands into his jeans pockets. “More than you know.”
“Let’s go. There’s not much time and we need to make a quick stop first.”
The man opened the back door to the Lincoln and waved Sean in.
****
Sean fidgeted in the rear seat of the man’s car. His eyes were fastened on a dimple on the back of his bald head. Their stop had taken less than ten minutes, and then they were back on their way. Sean knew Pittsburgh pretty well, but he was becoming disoriented as the car wove through back streets. “Where are we going anyway?”
The man’s steely eyes glanced into the rearview mirror. “I already told you. Mr. Percy Scott is a companion of mine. He asked me to pick up something from his lab. We’re heading to give it to him.”
Sean thought about the strange package now resting in the trunk of the car. The man used a card to gain access to the lab, but if Sean wasn’t mistaken, he had forced the chemical locker open without a key. The whole affair had made him uneasy. “But where are we meeting him?”
The man’s kept his focus on the road. “Well, as you can imagine, we don’t really tell people where our headquarters is.”
At the word headquarters, Sean perked up. “Sort of like the Batcave? I get it.”
“Yeah. Like that. We stopped the whole black-hood-over-the-head thing years ago. Wasn’t the most hospitable to our new recruits.”
Sean leaned back and smiled. When his change began to manifest, he knew deep down that he was meant for great things. His disappointment with the chemist and the poet stung, but he saw now that it was only an initiation, a way to test his resolve. This man’s interest in Sean and his powers was precisely what he had been looking for in the professors.
JV team my ass.
Without signaling, the man navigated the town car down a service road that led to one of Pittsburgh’s three rivers. Sean looked each way, trying to reorient himself. Nothing was more confusing than the bridges and rivers of this city. Slowing, they turned the corner of what looked like an abandoned warehouse. The man pulled up next to a cargo van whose nose kissed the barrier that separated the parking lot from the river’s edge.
The man grabbed a pair of leather driving gloves from the passenger side and exited the vehicle. Sean’s heart banged like a drum in anticipation. He walked double-time to catch up with his new companion.
As they made their way down towards the river, it occurred to Sean that, other than himself, he couldn’t sense the presence of anyone in the area. It was rare for Sean not to be bombarded with at least a dozen peoples’ auras. He tried to impress the man with his abilities.
“Geez, you really hid your base well. I can’t sense anyone even remotely close by.”
The large man stopped and placed his hand on Sean’s shoulder.
“That’s kind of the point.”
Suddenly, the man’s grip tightened and Sean’s shoulder erupted in pain. Another gloved hand latched onto his throat, cutting off his attempted scream. Sean’s legs buckled beneath him but the man kept him vertical, holding him up by his neck. Within seconds, Sean began to lose consciousness. He tried to lift his hands, to fend off his attacker, but his arms had gone numb. His own aura slowly began to fade as his vision blurred.
The man’s face remained expressionless.
PART THREE
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars.
“Prayers of Steel,” Carl Sandburg
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Willa dropped sliced fruit into a deep bowl of Greek yogurt. Ritual was the mainstay of her life. With so many uncertainties, maintaining habits kept her on top of both of her vocations. The same flowing black dress comprised her attire for class; the same food comprised her breakfast. Cat, her aptly named orange tabby, was her regular companion.
Her bare feet were cold on the tile floor, but the chill of Pittsburgh’s winters was part of her training. She wore a long-sleeved tee and dark-colored yoga pants. The right leg was rolled up to the knee, exposing a bandaged calf—a reminder from her first true battle.
Local news played on the tiny ten-inch television affixed under her cabinets. Most of the day was spent in the clouds, her mind affixed on higher things. But breakfast kept her feet in the dirt, reminded her about the world she transcended. Reports about the local community, predictable Pittsburgh weather, and sordid crime filled her mornings. As she pushe
d the plunger of her French press, a story in the background caught her attention.
Tragedy struck the University of Pittsburgh today, when a 19-year-old college student was found brutally murdered in a parking lot next to the Monongahela River.
Willa’s eyes snapped to the screen. There were thousands of 19-year-old college students in Pittsburgh. It couldn’t be him. Her grandfather’s warning echoed in her mind. As soon as she thought of Edwin, a grainy picture of her student, likely his college ID photo, appeared on the tiny screen.
The body of Sean Moretti was found by police early this morning. Officials are not releasing information except to say that they determined the event to be foul play, and likely drug-related. We’ll keep you up-to-date on the story as it develops. Now over to Phil for the latest on last night’s Penguins game.
Willa’s stomach turned over. Her stomach threatened to evacuate the spoonful of yogurt she had eaten.
She crumpled toward the tile and wept.
****
Standing outside Elijah’s door, Willa felt foolish. But flight wasn’t an option. While she and the man had a connection both through their powers and their experience, they barely knew one another. They had a sort of trauma bond. She needed someone to talk to, and the list of available candidates wasn’t exactly long.
He had responded immediately to her text.
She knocked on the wooden barrier. The door flew open, as if Elijah was waiting for her just on the other side.
“Hey,” he said. The historian took a step forward and opened his arms, offering what might have been Willa’s most awkward embrace ever. The consolation was surprisingly needed. She squeezed his body, feeling him wince beneath the pressure. She realized that Elijah must have sustained his own injuries from the events on Mount Washington.
Still holding him, she tilted her mouth toward his ear and said, “I tried to push him away. I tried to save him. But I did this—I killed him.”
Steel City Heroes (Book 1): The Catalyst Page 16
