Merciless

by Robin Parrish

  "Well, he seems to know where he's going, and that works for me," she replied, weary and ready to get out of this wretched place.

  It took some time, but they followed the old man through the rubble and back toward the opening in the cave wall. Down the dark, sloped tunnel, and back out onto the platform where their Conveyor Pod waited.

  Instead of boarding the Pod, the old man made a sharp left and moved to a three-by-three metal grate in the platform. Kneeling, he unlatched something and the square grate gave way to reveal a ladder leading to the bottom of the Conveyor tunnel below. Without preamble, he began to descend, something he managed with surprising ease considering he had the prosthesis.

  Daniel and Lisa exchanged a significant look, and then followed him. At the bottom of the tunnel, the old man led them to a tiny side passageway, at the end of which was a very old door made of solid oak. Inscribed into the door was the six-pointed symbol of the Secretum, surrounded by extraordinarily ornate scrollwork that seemed to serve no purpose but look impressive. The number 102 was inscribed in the center of the symbol.

  The old man opened the door to reveal a tiny, cylindrical room. On the other side of the room was a ladder that led up into the darkness, well out of their field of vision. The man grabbed the ladder with his single hand and began to climb as handily as he had descended the last ladder.

  Daniel started to follow him, but Lisa tugged at his shirtsleeve from behind. "Guy has an awfully intimate knowledge of this place, don't you think?"

  He nodded in reply; truthfully, he'd been thinking along the same lines. Who was this old man, and how did he know so much about this place? Was he a member of the Secretum? Had he worked at this underground facility at some point in the past?

  They climbed for what seemed like hours, and no one said a single word. Sweating hard at the effort, Daniel thought of what a bizarre trio they were. The old man with his one hand, Daniel with his ruined foot, and Lisa pulling up the rear, consumed with worry and fear.

  This trip had confirmed his earlier suspicions: She really had changed after their experiences in London. She was more wary now, and much more apprehensive about engaging in anything dangerous. He thought back to her gung-ho exit from the plane in Jerusalem, only a week or so ago. While he had displayed much more cowardice about wanting to enter the destroyed city and help with the cleanup, she had basically grabbed a shovel and wouldn't let anyone stand in her way.

  He supposed he had changed significantly from recent experiences too. His confession of guilt to Lisa had lightened the weight that had been consuming him internally. He was far from absolved for his offenses, but everything that had been holding him back seemed so irrelevant, so pointless now. He had a renewed vitality that he felt no desire to explain away with logic or science.

  At the top, they found a small sliding door that opened into an elevator shaft. To the right was an elevator door opening to the bottom floor of whatever building they were in, and Daniel and the old man set to work forcing it open.

  Climbing out, they found themselves in a downtown Los Angeles bank. The building was closed, and the floor-to-ceiling glass windows on the ground level displayed a dank, oppressive atmosphere outside.

  A few rays of sunlight broke through the clouds, but twilight was spreading fast, thanks to the darkened skies and burning earth that were approaching. Empty drink containers and old newspapers tumbled through the deserted street outside. A lonely SUV flew by at a speed well above the speed limit, but otherwise no vehicles were in motion. Downtown was largely a ghost town, though a scattered few pedestrians were visible ducking quickly between buildings, eyes darting fearfully in all directions, as if they were hoping not to be noticed.

  The bank they stood in was locked down, and Daniel was astonished they hadn't already set off an alarm. Maybe the power was out. Not much was out of place, with more than a dozen teller stations along the far wall, partitioned desks and offices to their right, and the front doors to their left.

  "Everything's locked," Lisa said, moving to the front door and trying to open it. "How do we get out?"

  Daniel retrieved his pistol, and Lisa screamed when he fired a number of shots into one of the tall windows, far off to her right, until it shattered, every shard of glass falling to the ground.

  Alarms began to wail, but their new friend took no notice. Without waiting for the other two, the old man marched right through the broken window frame and out onto the empty city street.

  Daniel and Lisa followed his lead once more, exiting the building and marching to a street corner to their south. The skies overhead were darkening fast, and Daniel was alarmed at how quickly the world was changing, and how fast Los Angeles-which was so far away from the events happening in the Middle East-had already reacted. An eerie quality had settled over the heart of this famous city, blanketing the concrete canyons in foreboding silence. Whatever few pedestrians they saw were speaking to each other in hushed voices, as if afraid to break the deafening quiet. Traffic lights were dark, lacking electricity; not even a single aircraft flew through the skies.

  Daniel recognized the street they were on in the business district, and again he was amazed at how deserted the city appeared. Looters had strewn a destructive path, leaving behind broken storefronts and damaged goods and trash littering the streets and sidewalks. Abandoned cars clogged their path as well. Daniel imagined traffic being so bad to get out of downtown that frantic residents had left their cars behind in the street, opting to flee however they could.

  They passed a homeless man sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, hugging himself with both arms and squeezing his eyes closed as tight as they could possibly be. He muttered under his breath, again and again, "It's not real. It's not real. It's not real ..."

  What was happening here? He'd expected mass hysteria or fistfights or broken water mains and gas leaks. Instead, it was like everyone had just run off to hide in the wilderness someplace. More likely they had packed up their families and hidden in basements or gone to stay with out-of-town relatives. It was as if hope itself had abandoned the globe and there was nothing left but to hide and wait for the end to come.

  "Look!" Lisa cried, breaking the impenetrable silence.

  Daniel followed her gesture to see that on the horizon, the firestorm was approaching. Violently ripping through the skies, it was a terrifying wonder that was as hard to look at as it was to take one's eyes off of.

  The old man jerked him by the arm at the same moment that Lisa screamed.

  He pointed across the street, where Alex and Payton stood, watching them with blank, dead faces.

  Daniel's first instinct was to run and embrace his friends.

  Well, Alex, anyway.

  But his scientist's brain took in Alex's shattered, ghastly form and applied the terrible logic he knew to be true to the situation. Alex and Payton weren't in control of themselves. Ethan warned him of as much. Both wore bloodied clothes. Both were caked in mud, ash, blood, and sweat.

  Of course-Oblivion would see no need for them to bathe.

  With a single ominous step, Payton moved in their direction. He would vanish in a blur of movement any second.

  "Run!" Daniel shouted, grabbing Lisa by the arm and slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

  They were half a block away when Daniel felt himself overcome with terror. The sensation had hit him fast, like a panic attack, and in no time he was nearly shivering with cold sweats, his heart thumping like mad. But he swallowed the feeling and forced himself to continue running. His imagination went wild, conjuring up an endless variety of horrific shadows closing in around the two of them. He had known much fear in his life, but never had it consumed him so completely as this.

  He knew this was Alex's doing, that she was forcing these emotions into his system, and he wouldn't be able to stop it. Still, he tried to logically compartmentalize the sensations, to push them aside and run mathematical equations through his head; it was a habit for focus and concentration he'd
picked up in college. But the feelings Alex fed into him were much too powerful, and soon he lost control of his bladder, a warm liquid running down his pant leg.

  He was too busy running to be embarrassed. But he stopped short when an imposing figure blocked his path at the next street corner just ahead. The figure's head was bowed with hands clasped in front.

  Payton.

  We're dead.

  Daniel was about to turn around, Lisa still clutching his hand for dear life, when a dented Camaro screeched to a halt right between them and Payton. The passenger-side door flew open and a strange sound like a yell emanated from the driver's lips. It was the old man. In his panic, Daniel hadn't even noticed the man disappear from their midst.

  Daniel flung Lisa into the front seat and fumbled with the back door before diving in himself. Payton was already striding atop the car, sword in hand, slashing downward. The blade sliced through the roof and barely caught with Daniel's left arm. He shouted in pain but was able to roll away.

  Lisa crouched in her seat and he did the same, sliding down as far into the back as he could. The old man gunned the gas, and they were off, but Payton clung stubbornly to his sword, which was still embedded in the roof of the car.

  The old man swung the car wildly from side to side in a crazed frenzy, slinging them madly between the cars parked in the middle of the street, yet maintaining deft control over their movements. The man was surprisingly calm, his eyes darting around to take in every detail of their surroundings in short, focused movements.

  Above Daniel, Payton's sword sawed back and forth, slicing through metallic bits of the car's rooftop. The old man increased their speed, and the sword started to shift backward, slicing toward the rear of the car as the inertia finally caught up with Payton, who still knelt atop the car, holding his sword to maintain a grip on the vehicle.

  The old man let out a ferocious yell, and Daniel raised his head just long enough to peek through the windshield; an eighteen-wheeler was blocking their path directly ahead, situated perpendicular to their approach. The old man aimed for the rear of the truck, in the empty space beneath the load, between the massive forward and rear tires. Daniel quickly tried to do the math in his head, calculating if the Camaro would pass unharmed beneath the truck bed, but it was coming too fast and he was still shaking off the aftereffects of Alex's panic attack.

  At the last second, the old man slid down sideways in the car to lie next to Lisa, and the sword in the roof vanished. Payton had jumped free before impact.

  The car bucked, followed by the awful shriek of metal against metal, but then they were clear. The roof had scraped against the underside of the truck bed, but the parts of it Payton hadn't sliced into held firmly to its moorings.

  "They're really not messing around!" Lisa shouted, rising again in her seat to look behind for any trace of Payton.

  Daniel dared to raise his head too, scanning the world on all sides of the car. "Oblivion knows we came for the Stone. I wonder if he knows what to use the blasted thing for."

  A garbage truck roared into view just behind them as they rounded a corner. Alex was at the wheel, but Payton was crawling his way from above the roof of the truck-he must have leapt onto it after jumping from their car, Daniel figured-down into the driver's seat and pushing her aside. The truck slowed slightly as they reconfigured positions, but soon Payton had hold of the wheel and Alex sat beside him.

  Payton poured on the speed, drawing close enough to their car to look Daniel in the eyes. Daniel barely knew what was happening as the windshield of the truck exploded and something shot through the back of his seat, stopping less than an inch above his prone body. It was Payton's sword; he'd thrown it at the Camaro in the blink of an eye.

  "Faster!" Daniel yelled at the old man, eying the dangerous sword, which was still wiggling back and forth where it was jammed into the seat, and debating whether or not he should touch it. The old man replied to Payton's advance in kind, pushing the car's engine harder.

  "Where are we going?" Lisa cried over the thundering engine, looking into her side mirror at the garbage truck that was barreling toward them like an unstoppable tank.

  The old man gave a whelp and pointed straight ahead.

  "I'll take any place that's far away from these two," Daniel agreed.

  Daniel took a deep breath and retrieved something from his backpack, but it wasn't a piece of the Dominion Stone. It was the black Glock he'd swiped from Ethan.

  He debated his options as the truck inched closer. He could try shooting the engine, but if he somehow hit the gas tank, the whole thing would blow. And Ethan had been right about him; he had no desire to kill his friends, even if they were possessed by an all-powerful evil.

  An idea formed in his mind. Daniel reached into the front seat and put a hand on the old man's shoulder. "Let them get within twenty feet."

  The old man made no gesture to indicate his understanding, but Daniel looked back and saw that the truck was closing in on them fast.

  Kneeling precariously in the backseat, Daniel raised the weapon just over the seat to aim at the truck. He tried not to look at Alex, thinking of what she could do to his aim with another well-placed panic attack. And he didn't dare look at Payton, knowing what the assassin was capable of, lest he lose his resolve.

  Instead, he angled his view downward and aimed at the truck's right tire. If he could blow one of the tires flat, Payton would have no choice but to stop. It might not slow them down much-they'd probably just commandeer another vehicle-but their chances were already slim and he'd take any advantage he could get.

  Daniel zeroed in on what he could see of the tire beneath the huge grill, and fired. Lisa screamed at how loud the shot was, but he ignored her and fired again. Repeatedly he squeezed the trigger until he'd used up the entire magazine, but to no avail. He only had one mag left, and didn't see the point in wasting it on another attempt at such a difficult shot. He let the spent mag fall, replaced it with a full one, and jammed the gun back into his backpack on the seat next to him.

  There was a blur from the front of the truck, and then the truck began to slow. He did a double take-Payton was no longer in the driver's seat! He'd vanished.

  He turned; Payton knelt inside the car right beside him in the backseat. Daniel had been afraid of this; getting closer to the truck so he could take a shot had allowed Payton to get close enough to dive full-bodied into the car. In a smudge of motion, Payton had already freed his sword from the backseat and brought it down to bear upon Lisa's neck up front.

  Daniel freed the gun from his backpack. He whipped his arm forward in Lisa's direction, just fast and strong enough to catch the sword's long hilt with his pistol at the last second. The tip of the sword blade touched Lisa's neck in the front seat, and she didn't dare move.

  Daniel glanced sideways; Payton's flat, dispassionate eyes were locked on his.

  Their surroundings outside the vehicle were little more than indistinct shapes, bulleting past at dangerous speeds. They passed beneath a dark cloud of the firestorm, and everything in the car dimmed. The old man wrenched the steering wheel wildly to the right, and the sword left Lisa's neck as both men in the backseat shifted left. Off-balance, Daniel fell right on top of Payton, and not knowing what else to do, he dropped the gun and grabbed the overlong hilt of Payton's sword, trying to wrestle it away from him.

  Payton snarled as he elbowed Daniel viciously in the face, not once but twice, and Daniel shook the stars out of his vision while refusing to let go of his desperate grip on the sword. But it was only seconds before Payton regained his bearings and had vanished from beneath him. The sword disappeared from Daniel's grasp as well, and he was suddenly lying on the floorboard, grasping nothing but air.

  "Where is he?" he shouted, struggling to rise from his awkward position. "Where'd he go?"

  He looked up and saw Payton standing on the hood of the car, his sword already raised and preparing to strike.

  The old man slammed on the brakes, and
Payton leapt from his spot on the hood. At almost the same moment, something struck them from behind, crunching against the bumper. Daniel's seat was pushed up more than a foot toward the front seat.

  Daniel turned. Alex had resumed driving the garbage truck and caught up with them during his struggle with Payton. Payton's leap from the car's hood had taken him to the top of the garbage truck, where he had regained his footing and now glared at the tiny Camaro, his sword still poised and ready to slice.

  The garbage truck slammed into them again, and Lisa screamed as Daniel's seat jutted farther toward the front of the car, wedging him painfully between. He could only imagine what the back of the car must look like now. Lisa reached through and took his hand in hers, squeezing hard.

  The old man took a hard right into a parking lot, jumped a curb, and blasted through a greenhouse. They burst through the glass with ease and didn't slow down, the garbage truck still hot on their heels. But the truck couldn't turn as easily as the car could, and the old man used this to their advantage, turning wildly again on the other side.

  Daniel looked through the car's windshield, ignoring the tight squeeze around his abdomen. He watched as the old man turned left at the next intersection and then turned right quickly after that. Another right and a left they swung wildly, and it became obvious: He was creating a random pattern that would be difficult for the cumbersome garbage truck to reproduce. But the constant turning was reducing their speed, even though the car was screeching at a highly unsafe velocity against the ground beneath it, which was turning to black volcanic rock as the chase went on.

  A crash came from behind and Daniel twisted as best he could to see that Alex had countered their zigzagging maneuvers by barreling through any obstacles that stood in her way. She had just crashed through a small drive-through burger place and her speed was increasing.

  "Faster!" Lisa shouted.

  The old man replied with an unintelligible roar; Daniel looked down in the front seat to see that his foot was already mashed against the floorboard as far as it could be.