Merciless

by Robin Parrish

  "English?" Ethan called out, facing the Chinatown residents.

  A moment passed in silence as the Chinese men and women stared at him with disdain, unmoving and unspeaking. But the line parted, and a woman stepped out into the street to approach Ethan.

  "I speak English. Yen Xue is my name."

  "I'm Ethan. It's nice to meet you, Xue."

  Tired creases formed around the corners of her lips as she eyed Ethan thoughtfully. He understood; she likely hadn't met many Westerners who knew that Chinese names placed the family name ahead of the given name.

  An older man with a self-important presence and authority in his every inflection said something to the female in Cantonese, rapid-fire. His meaning was clear, even to the outsiders.

  The woman named Xue was in her late thirties and dressed head to toe in brightly colored traditional Chinese attire. Her dark hair was tied in a large, tight bun. Sandals peeked out from beneath her dress, sheltering her feet.

  She didn't face the elder gentleman as she replied to him with something equally severe that Ethan could not understand. A hint of distaste tainted her lovely features when she replied to him. And when she spoke to Ethan again, she became more cordial, her voice carrying virtually no accent. "You are friends of Guardian. I saw you on the news with him," she said, shooting a knowing look at Alex. "But where is he now?"

  Alex couldn't hold Xue's piercing gaze. Ethan spoke instead. "I'm afraid he's dead."

  She turned downcast. "Then I fear the madness that has come to our streets will destroy more than Chinatown."

  "Why are those people here?" Ethan gestured at the gang on the other side of the street.

  "They sacrifice the innocent," Xue explained in an undertone, "believing they may appease the gods who have brought the darkness and fire and destroyed the soil. They ingest their victims so the blood of the innocent may cleanse them, inside and out. I do not know what specific purpose has brought these dangerous men here, but they appear to be ... hungry."

  The older man behind her said something else, which Xue ignored.

  "He's not glad to see us," Payton interjected.

  Xue took a step back and gestured dutifully to the older man. "This is Yen Wei, my uncle. He is a venture capitalist by trade, though he owns much more in this city than buildings, if you follow my meaning." A slight frown played at her lips, yet the grace and dignity with which she carried herself remained intact. "He is a powerful man; cross him at your peril. He has strong opinions about what is happening to the world. He knows who you are, and he believes that you are servants of the evil one."

  This instigated a rallying cry by the cultists, who let out unholy yells and screams that sounded like a pack of wild animals preparing to attack.

  "You have not come to help us," Xue inferred. There was no question in her voice, nor was there judgment or disappointment. "So what has brought you here?"

  Ethan's mind spun fast. "Guardian died trying to prevent all this from happening to the world. We're trying to finish what he started. But to do that, we need to reach a safedeposit box in the bank up ahead."

  "I know this building," Xue replied. "My uncle owns it. I could get you inside."

  "We'll get inside, love," said Payton, "one way or another."

  "But we can't leave you to this," Ethan finished.

  "My uncle will never accept your help," she said. Nonetheless, she spoke to her uncle in Cantonese. He replied to her and an argument ensued, with each successive statement growing in volume.

  Xue turned to face Ethan once more.

  "What did he say?" Ethan asked, noting with anxiety that two dozen men near her uncle had just taken an imposing step forward.

  "He is a fool. He said that death smiles on you."

  And as a cry arose that seemed to erupt from everywhere at once, North Broadway exploded.

  When he roused, Daniel heard only ringing. He was in the middle of the street, Lisa facedown on top of him. He tried to sit up to check her, but found his equilibrium too unstable to move.

  "LISA!!" he screamed.

  He was sure his mouth had formed the word, certain his throat had vocalized it. But he'd heard nothing. Nothing but the ringing.

  Daniel raised a hand, wiped the sweat from his brow. Blood dripped from his hand, thanks to a gash above his wrist.

  He looked around. Chinatown burned, ablaze in billowing fire. The blast seemed to originate from the cultists' side of the street, so there were only a few dozen of them still alive. The Chinese had fared better; the elder man named Yen Wei still stood exactly where Daniel had last seen him. His niece was on the ground next to Ethan.

  Lisa moved. Her head lifted until she saw the position she was lying in, directly on top of him. Their eyes made contact, and she almost smiled.

  She started speaking, her mouth moving slowly, but Daniel still couldn't hear.

  His arms had wrapped themselves around her. He wasn't sure how that had happened, but even amid this chaos, he had little inclination to disentangle himself from her.

  She leaned forward and kissed him. It was an action of desperation, of panic. Daniel welcomed it, lifting his head off the ground and mashing his lips into her with passion and intensity. She pressed back even harder, throwing her arms around him and closing her eyes. Like him, she was losing herself to the moment ...

  A tingle in the back of Daniel's neck made him open his eyes. Payton stood over the two of them, an impatient grimace all he had to offer.

  He offered a hand and pulled the two of them to their feet. Lisa cradled her left arm in a way that told Daniel she'd hurt her wrist. Sprained if lucky, broken if not.

  Two hundred feet away, a residual blast went off, the result of the blaze reaching something highly flammable. It could have been any number of things in a densely populated area like this-the gas line to a stove, a kerosene heater in somebody's apartment. Daniel recoiled slightly from it, and was comforted only by the realization that he'd heard the explosion.

  Payton vanished and Daniel caught sight of him a few hundred feet away, helping to pull an old woman from a burning building. Ethan was getting up from the ground and helping Xue to do the same. Poor Alex at first looked unconscious again, but he saw her fingers twitch and her head roll to the side. The old man without a hand was next to her, patting her gently to awaken her. Sergeant Tucker was mixed into the Chinese crowd, trying to save lives.

  "I told you to kill them!" a commanding voice shouted. "Kill them all!"

  Daniel turned. It was Yen Wei, shouting to his men, some of whom were still on the ground.

  Yen Xue was on her feet. "Uncle? Did you do this?" She gestured at the fires burning Chinatown all around them.

  "You are too young to understand!"

  "This is because of China, isn't it?" she said slowly. "Because of the quarantine?"

  She was referring, of course, to the Zhuan Virus. It was one of the first natural disasters to break out a few months ago, killing well over a million of the nation's population, and because of it America and the rest of the world had closed their doors to China. Cut them off. Protests erupted across the world, but the policy never changed.

  The fact that the virus had mutated and not killed anyone in more than two months had changed few people's minds that the world had turned its back on China and left her people to die alone.

  Enough of this madness, Daniel thought, uncharacteristic adrenaline surging through him. Seeing an opportunity, he stepped away from Lisa, reached inside his jacket pocket, and melted into the pandemonium surrounding them.

  "The world has gone mad," Wei replied to his niece. "We need to get their attention. Remind them that we are still here. We exist and we will not be forgotten!"

  "Even if it means killing ourselves!?" Xue screamed in his face.

  He turned away from her, back to his men. "I said kill the intruders! NOW!!"

  His men moved fast, at least two each taking positions around Alex, Payton, Lisa, Tucker, Ethan, and the old man. Pay
ton was already in striking position, and Alex settled her shoulders, eying her first emotional target.

  Daniel appeared behind the old patriarch and buried the muzzle of a pistol in the old man's ear. "We haven't formally met," he said, loud enough for the whole area to hear.

  The surrounding men turned on Daniel, each tensing like a cobra.

  "My friends and I are trying to save the world, and we need to get into that bank to do it. Now, I'm sorry about the quarantine in China, but you can't hold us responsible for that. So you're going to call your men off, or I'm going to blow your brains all over this pavement."

  The old man's eyes shifted sideways, and he smiled. "I am one of the most powerful men in this city. I own a third of downtown Los Angeles. I have no interest in helping you without something in return. But currency has lost its value in this brave new world. What can you offer me?"

  "How about the continued use of your mind?" Daniel replied. He pointed his free hand at Alex, who was watching them both, expression grim. "She can fill it with nightmares so potent you'd commit suicide to be free of them. Or maybe you'd like to keep your entourage?" He pointed at Payton. "That man is the scariest human being alive. He could kill every one of your men in under a minute with nothing but a very thin sword."

  "Your friends and their powers do not frighten me."

  Daniel rounded on Yen Wei and mashed the muzzle of the gun into his left eye socket. "Then how would you feel about losing your own life? Because the man holding a gun to your head right now is more dangerous than anyone else here. I have no superpowers ... but I am a murderer."

  He thumbed the hammer back and pressed the gun even harder into the old man's closed eye.

  A beat.

  Yen Wei spat on him. "You search for hope in a hopeless world. Waging a war that has already been lost. You are fools, all of-"

  His words were cut off by the end of a sword protruding from the front of his chest. He gulped, the sword was pulled free, and he fell to the ground.

  Daniel's gun hand fell. "You didn't have to kill him!"

  "I punctured no major organs," Payton replied, emotionless. "He'll live. But we won't if we don't get to the bank. Now."

  Daniel turned, as did everyone else, at the sound of an approaching mob. There was another group of blood-smeared cultists now between them and the bank. Coming this way.

  "These people . . ." said Alex, clutching her stomach, "if we leave them now-what's left of them-they'll be killed by that mob."

  "Everyone will be killed if we don't stop Oblivion!" Payton shouted, raising his voice for the first time in a long time. "This is not an argument, Alex, so don't bother! Get it through your head: He has to be stopped!"

  The silent tension within the group was augmented only by the sound of crackling fire and the distant thumping of approaching feet.

  "Can you really do it? Are you capable of stopping the evil one?" Xue broke the silence, ignoring her uncle on the ground and his moans of pain.

  Ethan faced her. "We're going to try."

  She hesitated, but only a moment. "Come with me. I know another way."

  The mob of cultists was building, over a hundred of them now, and they held death in their hands and in their hearts.

  "You heard the lady!" Ethan called out to his friends, ending the discussion, brandishing his gun and pulling its slide. "Load 'em if you got 'em."

  The group's roundabout trip to the bank, lit by the blazing fires set to Chinatown, took them to an employee entrance through an adjacent building that patrons would have never known about.

  The luck they'd had in making it to the bank didn't hold. Once inside, Xue led them to a set of stairs that would lead them to the sub-basement that held the vault. The cultists outside took immediate notice of their activities and used the bones they wielded as weapons to break through the building's glass front doors.

  "Go," Payton said, stopping at the top of the stairs. "I'll hold them here."

  Wordlessly, the old man, who was hefting a large duffle bag on his back, dropped the sack on the ground near the entrance to the stairs and retrieved a shotgun from inside. The bag's zipper now open, it was easy to see its full contents, comprised of a huge stockpile of guns from Payton's secret arsenal.

  He nodded at Payton, grim, as he hoisted it one-handed against his shoulder. No one bothered to argue with his obvious decision.

  Sergeant Tucker stepped out as well, digging into the duffle bag for an automatic rifle. "Rambo Senior and I will guard the door."

  "I should stay-" Ethan began.

  Tucker shook his head. "No, you go with them. In case we fail . . ." He didn't need to finish the thought. Should anyone get through their makeshift blockade, Ethan would be the only trained soldier there to help them.

  Xue led Alex, Ethan, Daniel, and Lisa down into the dark basement.

  "I'm sorry about your uncle," Ethan said quietly.

  "I'm sorry he's my uncle," Xue replied. "I have interned at many of his companies over the last five years. My parents insisted. It was a daily lesson on the dangers of power."

  "It corrupts."

  "Yes," she said. "It corrupts."

  They found the vault door already open, ripped canvas bags containing money strewn about the floor. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time to whatever employee or thief had broken in. Only now it had become largely worthless since the global economy had collapsed in Oblivion's wake.

  Inside the enormous vault, the five of them split up to hunt for Morgan's safe-deposit box. They could only hope that whoever had robbed the vault hadn't been able to access any of the boxes.

  The vault was poorly lit without power, with only batterypowered emergency floodlights casting angled spotlights in sporadic locations.

  A deep clang reverberated throughout the vault.

  "What was that?" Lisa's voice called out from the dimness.

  "It sounded like the vault door," Xue replied.

  "We're not alone in here!" Daniel shouted, and Ethan heard the sound of him chambering a round in his pistol.

  He was right, Ethan decided. The five of them had been locked inside the vault, and probably with some of the cultists, who had somehow gotten past the others upstairs. He had no time to think about that last part.

  "Payton will get us out," Alex said. "Just find that box."

  "What number are you looking for again?" Xue called out.

  "2342," Daniel replied with a raised voice.

  Ethan looked down. He saw it.

  Before be could announce the good news, all sound was drowned out by a great shout right behind him. It was an unearthly cry, a roar of death.

  "They're here!" he shouted. He whipped out his pistol and fired a few shots in the dark before he was on the ground and all light had been blocked out by the bodies crashing into him.

  Alex's heart thumped harder, sensing the bloodlust that had suddenly broken out in the vault. There was so much of it, she couldn't get a bead on how many of them there were.

  "Ethan!" she screamed. He had the key to the box; without that key, they had no chance.

  She ran, trying to zero in on Ethan's emotions. A typical adrenaline junkie, he gave off an unusual emotional fingerprint during a fight-something like giddy excitement.

  But not now.

  Her empathy failing her, she decided to just follow the noise. She maintained a safe distance, concentrating on filling the minds of the cultists with peace and contentment. But it was difficult to block out the intense savagery these men and women gave off.

  That was her last thought before one of them bashed her in the back of the head with a heavy bone.

  Ethan was being battered by sharp-edged bones and grappling for control of his gun as he heard more footsteps approaching. He angled his head and saw Xue's sandaled feet run into view.

  "Take this!" He caught sight of her briefly and tossed her the key to the safe-deposit box.

  He put a hand up to protect his face while managing to strike another
man who was pinning him to the ground. One of them bit into his forearm and tore off a mouthful of flesh. He screamed involuntarily.

  Someone stomped on his hand, and he turned loose of the gun reflexively. It fell away from his reach, clanking against the tile floor.

  From somewhere nearby, he heard a jangling sound, followed by the loud clap of something heavy hitting the ground. Ethan turned his head to the side while more blows fell, and his eyes met an upturned safe-deposit box that had fallen to the floor. A handful of tiny golden items were freed from the box and rolled in all directions.

  "What is this?" cried Xue's frantic, confused voice.

  Ethan made a split-second decision. It was a terrible risk, but he was low on options.

  He strained hard against his attackers and spun on his back until his left hand was able to land on one of the objects rolling across the floor.

  Alex had filled her attacker's mind with regret and gotten to her feet when there was a bright crackle of light. She turned to the mound of bloodied people on the ground, beneath which she knew was Ethan, and saw the piercing light break through the spaces between them, shining out in all directions in blinding beams.

  The light faded and then another glow, an underwater-like shimmer, caught her attention. It came from her Ring, and it was gone as fast as it had appeared.

  She looked back up just in time to see Ethan's attackers fly backward in a wave surrounding him. He stood, his body bruised and ragged, his arm awash in blood. Though he looked no different, Alex knew exactly what had just happened.

  Ethan Cooke was a Ringwearer.

  Ethan guessed he looked like a grisly mess, but he couldn't help himself. He grinned, poised triumphant over a dozen cultists.

  He looked down at his arms, which hadn't changed, yet he regarded them as if new. "I could really get used to this."

  Alex looked at him curiously. He expected her to reprimand him for throwing caution to the wind and taking on one of the Rings of Dominion. Instead, she asked, "What, did you get superstrength?"