by Jake Bible
“Okay. You don’t have to, but maybe you should anyway.” He held up his meaty doppler hands and gestured to the truck we were stuck in. “When will we ever get another chance to sit and hash out our history? It would be healthy for us to cleanse some old wounds. We can forge a new future together. One that is beneficial to us both.”
I chewed and stared, chewed and stared. I didn’t reply until I’d finished the first sandwich and started in on the second. “Are you seriously trying to get me to work for you right now? The goddamn balls on you.” I looked him up and down. “I assume dopplers have balls.”
“Got balls,” two of the dopplers replied.
“Good to know. Shut up.”
“Chase, I’m not asking you to work for me, but to work with me. Asheville can be ours. Hell, old friend, more than just Asheville.”
He was so confident that he even got a doppler’s face to look semi-intelligent as he grinned down at me. I ate, I stared. Then I set the sandwich aside and shifted in my chair, leaning forward so my forearms rested on my knees.
“You ever call me old friend again and I will kill you.”
He sighed. “Typical response. I should have expected it.”
“Not done talking. Our past? Pure hell. You were evil to me. Not as evil as the adults in the house, but they at least had the excuse of being meth-addled junkies. You? A sadistic bastard that locked onto me as soon as you showed up.”
“Now, that right there is bullshit, Chase,” he replied with a snarl. “I was in that house first. Or, should we say, trailer, because calling it a house would be generous. Either way, it was my home before you arrived. I came and went, mostly went, because, as you say, it was hell. But do not ever think you had more rights to that place than I did. You think you were in Hell? You have no idea.”
“I have a pretty good”—
“No, you don’t!” he roared.
The dopplers next to him jumped and looked about for the threat. Seeing none, they focused on me and began to walk forward. The One Guy put out a hand and grabbed one by the elbow. They all halted, but were seriously confused.
I’d have to watch that. Confused dopplers were dangerous. They tended to start crushing and killing by default until they understood what was going on.
“Lost your cool, Leonard,” I said. Knife in gut and twisted. “Better get it back before Harper is done gassing up the truck.”
“Don’t call me that,” the One Guy hissed.
He went for my Achilles’ heel earlier. I was only returning the favor. Leonard Maguire. That was his name. There were maybe two or three people left alive that knew that about him. Names had power and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to wipe his out of existence.
The dopplers were itching to put a beat down on me. I could see them shaking with anticipated violence. One gesture from the One Guy and they’d break me in two. I set my sandwich on top of the closest cooler and slowly, carefully stood up. Dim smoke began to swirl from my palms.
“Really?” the One Guy asked, his eyes flicking to my hands. “All I wanted was a conversation.”
“You never want conversation. You want conflict. You want a fight, a battle, a war. I’ve watched you slowly take control of the extradimensional elements in Asheville for years now. There isn’t a piece of the strange that doesn’t have your fingerprints on it.”
“I’m an industrious entrepreneur. No different than any of the businessmen and women that are kicking tenants out of apartment buildings to make way for high-rise hotels. I see opportunities and I take them.”
I laughed. “Interesting how you compare yourself to the assholes destroying our city.”
“Oh, no, Chase, you got me all wrong. Everything I do is to protect our city, not destroy it. While my tactics may be unorthodox, they do serve a purpose. As hard as it is for you to believe, I do care.”
“About yourself. Only.”
The Dim pouring from my palms wrapped around my hands as I made fists. The black smoke looked like boxing gloves, which was my intent, but the Dim was going to pack way more of a punch than leather wrapped around cotton batting.
The One Guy patted his doppler form then smiled. “This body can take a beating, Chase.”
“I’m counting on it,” I replied, taking a step towards him. “No one will complain if we arrive in DC with a bruised and battered doppler in tow while your real body stays mark-free.”
“But if I fight back then you can say one of my dopplers went for you. It may not nullify the contract, but it gives you a considerable amount of wiggle room. Good for you, Chase. Good for you.”
I was playing at something very dangerous. But I was sick and tired of thugs like the One Guy, like Daphne, like the DEX for that matter, pushing me around to fit into their agendas. I didn’t have the energy to play nice anymore. And without Sharon around to be the voice of reason, I was more than happy to let my previous life, my street kid persona from long ago, come out for a few minutes.
In short: I needed a good goddamn brawl or I was going to explode.
Two more steps and I brought up my Dim gloves. The two connected dopplers moved to get between me and the One Guy doppler. The odd doppler out stood there, looking lost and more confused than ever. I went for him, surprising them all.
The doppler grunted as I slammed my right fist into his crotch. Then he squeaked, grabbed his balls, and toppled over. The doppler in the Dim box was probably feeling just as uncomfortable.
With a fallen doppler between me and the two dopplers still active, I went for the One Guy. He was gonna get a face full of Dim and then he’d learn what pain was.
Except that wasn’t how my plan worked out. I caught a doppler fist to my left cheek instead. The One Guy had always been a better fighter than I was. And a doppler body was made for fighting more than his real body. I had miscalculated and was about to pay for it.
I did get in a couple jabs to his gut, but I was really aiming for his crotch, so the jabs didn’t have the power I wanted them to. I lost the momentum at that point. The next second I was being picked up by the One Guy as he grabbed me by the leg and the arm. Then I was flying across the truck.
I cried out as my back hit the armor plating. If bullets couldn’t get through it, neither could a Chase.
I tossed the Dim gloves and went back to what I knew best. Dim rods. The Dim gloves were pure machismo. They were ego. My ego was about to begin leaking from my ears if I didn’t regroup.
The Dim rods shot from my palms before I even tried to rise, and I swiped with my left at the One Guy’s knee. He jumped back, but I clipped his knee cap and he grunted. If he’d been human, I would have torn that patella right out of his pants. No moment to waste, I got to my feet and swiped with my right rod. He ducked back, but came up against his dopplers and had nowhere to retreat.
Our eyes met and in that second I knew we were probably going to kill each other.
Did I lose my shit? Yes. Fully admit that. Too much history between us. I should have known better than to take the job. I acted too casual. Thought I could shove all that history and abuse and plain shitty One Guy down into a deep, dark mental hole and focus on the work. I was wrong.
Did losing my shit feel good, though? Hell yes. Wrong or not, on the wrong side of a client was where I found myself and I figured that the only way out was through. Kind of a theme in my life.
He rushed me; I attacked with both Dim rods.
Neither of us connected.
My feet went out from under me as the truck was rocked by an explosion. The wall across from us buckled inward, the armor bowing against the attack. Hexes are great when fending off magic attacks. Not so great when what I had to assume was a rocket slams into the side of the truck. Rocket beats magic.
My Dim rods blinked out as the One Guy went sprawling over my legs.
“No,” he hissed, but he wasn’t talking to me. “Too soon. Too soon!”
“I knew it,” I growled as I tried to shove him off.
The movement didn’t matter. The truck was hit again and that time it began to topple. Sunlight brightened the cargo area as the armor was torn open and the truck ended up on its side. I stared up at the sun that was high overhead and blinked a few times as the ringing in my ears blocked out almost all sound.
Almost all sound. Hard to block out an enraged yeti. They have some serious lungs.
Something went flying across the open hole in the truck’s wall. Then another something and another. The last something had the vague shape of a human being, but seemed to be missing the arm parts most humans have. Even my explosion-stunned brain had an inkling as to what happened to those arm parts.
“Get up,” the One Guy shouted into my face. He pulled me to my feet and shook me. “You have to protect the Dim box! Protect my body!”
“Back off, asshole,” was what I thought I said, but I could tell by the look on the ugly doppler face that I probably said, “Buckle nuff, aspic.” Or something like that.
He gave me a hard slap. Then another. That did the trick.
“Hit me again and I gut you,” I said as I formed a Dim blade with my left hand and placed it against his belly.
“Don’t let the blood ghast get me! Send my body away into the Dim!” he snarled as he yanked my face close to his. “Do your job and protect it!”
“I haven’t made a key,” I gasped. “I send the box away and your body is lost forever, pal.”
“Then make a key!”
“Let me the hell go first.”
He did and I braced myself against the ceiling of the truck which had become the wall. The Dim box holding the One Guy’s body had been knocked all the way to the sliding door. I had most of the truck to cover to get to it. Not a problem, usually.
Except the sliding door went flying open and six men with automatic weapons appeared.
“Not yet!” the One Guy yelled as the men opened fire.
17.
THE THING ABOUT being stolen as a child and raised in the faerie dimension, especially by the Fae, is that not only does that stolen child learn some serious weapons skills, hand-to-hand combat, and all around badass moves, but that same child learns a good deal about battle hexes. The Fae love their battle hexes.
So does Harper.
I dove behind one of the dopplers, but before my view was blocked by the muscle-bound moron, I saw two of the gunmen become living torches. Their bodies lit up like sparklers and they began to scream, their assault rifles clattering to the pavement as they collapsed to scorched knees.
The doppler I hid behind jerked and shook as bullet after bullet pierced flesh. Lucky for me, the body was so thick that none of the bullets reached me. That gave me time to form a solid shield of Dim over me, which in turn gave me time to get up into a crouch and assess the scene.
Two of three non-One Guy dopplers were dead, including the one by me. The last one still fighting was taking some serious lead to his body, but he was on the attack, forcing through the onslaught to get to the gunmen.
He almost made it, but he took one too many shots to his Cro-Magnon forehead and that thick skull shattered, sending what little brains he had spilling out across the truck. I took that as my cue and jumped up, Dim shield in front of me, and charged the end of the truck just as two more gunmen became engulfed in flames.
My attack happened in less than five seconds. From the door coming up to me reaching the edge of the truck where the last two gunmen were turning to face the new threat, less than five seconds. But every step, every foot and inch of those five seconds felt like an eternity.
A shaved yeti entered the picture as he grabbed one of the gunmen from behind by the head and yanked up hard, taking said head and spine straight out of the guy’s body. The last gunman wasn’t so lucky. Before Lassa could get to him, his skin began to bubble and boil, but didn’t catch fire. He fell to his knees, crying like a baby. Lassa paused and looked towards an approaching Harper.
“We’re gonna have a chat,” Harper said. Without looking at me she added, “You good, Chase?”
“I’m good,” I said and let the Dim shield disappear. I needed to conserve energy until we knew what exactly we were up against.
“One Guy?” Harper asked as she closed on the gunman.
“I live,” the One Guy called from deeper inside the truck.
“Lassa? We clear?” Harper asked as her hand closed around the throat of the gunman and squeezed.
“We’re clear,” Lassa replied as he spun in a slow circle, his eyes taking in everything, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air, his muscles tensed and ready in case he was wrong. I’d watched him do the same thing in a few other situations, so I knew he wasn’t even close to letting his guard down. “For now. But we need to move. Troy is already off hunting for a new vehicle.”
“Where’s the blood ghast?” I asked.
Harper paused in her throat squeezing, letting the gunman have a precious breath of air, and looked at me.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“The One Guy was in on this,” I said. “He knew there was an attack coming. He said it was a blood ghast, though. Then he kept yelling too soon.”
All eyes looked past me and into the truck. The One Guy only sat where he was, blood and soot covering most of his face. He flipped all of us off.
“Interesting,” Harper said as she crouched in front of the gunman, her attention back on him. “That asshole hire you?”
The gunman’s eyes shifted towards the One Guy doppler. He shook his head as much as Harper’s grip would let him. Harper sighed.
“The One Guy, not the doppler,” she said. “Did the One Guy hire you?”
“Don’t . . . know . . . who . . . that . . . is,” the gunman choked out.
“He wouldn’t,” the One Guy said. “He’s simply muscle. Muscle that was supposed to be waiting down the road several hours from now!”
Harper returned her attention to the gunman. “He hired you to what? Kill us and make it look like he was dead too? A clean getaway for this scumbag?”
“What . . . ?” The gunman couldn’t finish. His face turned blue and eyes began to bug out of his head.
“Harp,” I said calmly.
She let go and the gunman fell over onto his side, coughing and gasping for air.
“Talk or die, bitch,” Harper snarled.
“Gonna . . . die . . . anyway,” he grunted.
I walked out of the truck and knelt next to him. “It’s how you die that matters. Messy like your friends or behind bars many, many years from now.”
“Won’t . . . live that . . . long.”
“Then you talk,” Harper snapped, turning to face the One Guy. “Spill it, asshole.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Kill the hex, Harp.”
“What?”
“Kill the hex. Now.”
Harper glared at me then snapped her fingers. The gunman’s skin stopped bubbling. It was still messed up, but wasn’t about to cook off his flesh anymore.
“Who hired you?” I asked.
“Chase, we know who”—
“Harper, let me ask the questions,” I said. I focused on the gunman. “Who hired you?”
“Don’t . . . know what . . . you mean,” he said, his voice weak and defeated.
Sometimes letting the pain go away for a while was better than making it worse. I knew he was terrified of Harper turning the hex back on, I could see it in his eyes. I planned on using that terror.
“But you were hired to kill all of us except the One Guy, right?”
“Huh?” He looked honestly confused. “We were
n’t hired. Why do you keep asking that? We were sent to kill everyone. No survivors.”
“You idiot!” the One Guy shouted. “Those were not your orders!”
“Yeah, they were,” I said. “Because you didn’t hire these guys. Didn’t you hear him, pal? They weren’t hired. They were sent.”
Harper had been moving slowly closer to the One Guy, but she paused at that revelation.
“Lassa. Watch him,” she said.
Lassa switched positions with her so he could keep an eye on the One Guy while Harper returned to the gunman. The man flinched and started to whimper, but she waved his whining away.
“Shut up. I’m not going to hex you,” she said as she knelt and yanked up one of his shirt sleeves. She frowned then shoved him over and yanked up his other sleeve. “And here we are.”
There was a black-inked tattoo on the inside of his bicep. It was a total amateur job, but distinct enough to look like a DNA helix morphing into two snakes wrapped around each other.
“Crap tat,” Harper said. “They’re recruiting too fast.”
“They?” I asked. “What am I looking at?”
“Portal Patriots,” Harper said. “Anti-extradimensional militia. Humans first, screw the rest of the beings and their dimensions.”
“So racists,” I said.
“Pretty much, dude,” Lassa said.
“You run into them?” I asked him.
“I’m a yeti, dude. If I let my fur grow, I catch looks. And not of the sexy kind.”
“That it?” I asked the gunman. “Are you part of the Portal Patriots?” He grunted something, but he was fading fast. I turned back to the truck and the One Guy. “You’re in bed with these assholes?”
“What? No. I didn’t hire them,” the One Guy replied. “These corpses aren’t part of my plan.”
“And that plan is . . . ?” Harper asked. She was done with the gunman. Her attention was on the One Guy. “Time to talk. Contract is null and void, as far as I’m concerned.”
