Days of Fury

by B. J. Castillo

  Possibly, if the mission was complicated and the agents were not able to stop the pyxis, there would be a City Council trustee to give the news of an atrocious event that took place inside the building, which will incite a media scandal that would end up throwing the North Koreans as guilty for the death of Sergei Petrov.

  But if the mission prospered, then they would see the New York governor, the North Korean delegate and the Russian chancellor smiling from ear to ear, healthy and safe, on the screen.

  At some point Caleb took Eve’s hand, sweetly; the heat that emitted was comforting to her in the middle of that moment of tension. Evelyn leaned back against Caleb’s chest, shying away from the fear that everything was going from bad to worse. Caleb, though silent, was as fearful as she was. Evelyn could hear the rapid pounding in her chest, where her cheek was smoothed, and she could feel his pulse through his skin, where her hands were intertwined.

  And finally the moment has come. Evelyn’s heart jumped in her chest. She suddenly stood up. On the screen the building of the city hall was reflected, and in the atrium was already Robert Schmidt, who was preparing to give his respective words about the meeting. Next to the governor were the Russian chancellor, Sergei Petrov, robust and sullen, and the smiling North Korean delegate, Ji Soo.

  Outside there a beautiful day, it was the first thing Evelyn noticed; the sky that had glimpsed behind the city hall, before the approach to Schmidt and his counterparts, had been very blue and ostentatiously white as the motifs that decorated the side walls of the training room. The second thing she noticed was that her father was not on the back of Governor Schmidt, much less close, as he always had been.

  Despite this, she stopped worrying and celebrated with the rest of those present in the dining room the triumph of the first day of fury against the pyxis, hoping that it was not far ahead. The emergence of politicians, healthy and safe, only that could mean. They had triumphed. Humanity would live in peace one more season.

  Amid the merriment, laughter and cheers, the door of the room opened and Claire entered. She had a smile from ear to ear, her teeth were as white as her doctor's coat. She shook one hand with joy, and with the other held a cordless phone. The first thing Claire did was hug her husband; the second, inform everyone the following:

  “I have received a call from the agents of the future,” she said with such emotion that her words were barely intelligible, “that with a little exaltation I have been informed that the mission has been a complete success.”

  Once again the joy between all broke out. Jim laughed and danced holding hands with Hailee circling. Claire threw herself into the professor’s arms again. Evelyn threw herself at Caleb's and hugged warmly. A moment passed, someone called her.

  “Evelyn.”

  She turned around.

  “Someone asks for you,” Claire said before handing over the phone. Eve gave her a look like, “Who is it?” as she took it and stuck it in her ear; the doctor only shrugged and joined the others in celebration.

  “Yes?” He said on the phone.

  “Evelyn.”

  It was her father’s voice.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes darling.”

  “What's wrong?” She knew her father's voice enough to warn that something was not right just by listening to her. “Are you with Governor Schmidt?”

  “Darling...” her father said quietly, almost strangled.

  “Dad.” Evelyn stared at Caleb, who had stopped in front of her. “What's going on?”

  “I need…”

  “What?”

  The room was silent when she raised her voice.

  “What's going on?” She repeated, upset.

  “I need you to come...”

  “Where?”

  A drowned sound. Coughs.

  Then there was a moment of silence, and then it was heard as if like father was giving a deep breath.

  “Dad?” Eve moaned in a thin voice.

  Nobody answered.

  “Dad!”

  “Home...” her father finally said in a whisper. “Come…”

  And it was cut.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Evelyn kept the phone pressed to her ear at least fifteen seconds after the call ended. When she finally reacted, she heard voices around her and saw shadows moving in a dizzying whirlwind. A second later she strode from the dining room and crossed the corridors to the training room, where she armed herself.

  She made several quick stops. To change clothes. To look for chemical potions in the laboratory. To take some thick boots Rhys had offered she and they were in her room. And she hurriedly left the facilities for the only road she knew: the elevator. When she got inside, Caleb appeared in the doorway of the room and started walking toward her.

  “Eve…” she heard him say. And the doors closed.

  * * *

  Evelyn leaned back and stuck her back against the bright wall of the elevator. Then she began to cry to tears alive while the ascent took place. Before, she had restrained herself from releasing her emotions abruptly, but there, at that moment, she was alone, and no one would see or hear her.

  She cried thinking of her father's voice, saying in that heartbreaking voice: “Home... Come...”

  She cried, meditating on the possible dangers her father might be going through.

  She cried for herself, because she still could.

  The elevator doors opened half a minute later and Evelyn was ready. She passed the back of her hand over her eyes to eradicate the remnants of her recent crisis, and then closed her black leather jacket, partly to hide the defibrillator on her belt and the chemical potions. She was going through the central room of the Public Library, which was fairly busy that day, when he heard someone rushing towards her from behind. The slight noise completely quieted down, and everyone's attention turned on the boy running towards her.

  “Evelyn,” Caleb shouted, “stop!”

  Evelyn stopped reluctantly. Every second she lost, it was a short period of suffering for her father. She turned to Caleb and looked at him gently, as if to tell him that everything was fine when it was not.

  “Come,” she said, taking him by the arm and holding him to a secluded place.

  Since the Public Library was busy that day, a secluded place was not itself that. Evelyn led him to a corridor flanked by two shelves full of books, and waited a moment while the pair of people there were leaving.

  “What's going on?” Caleb asked when they were alone, finally.

  “My father,” Eve replied, “is in danger.”

  Caleb frowned.

  “What?” He said, absorbed.

  Evelyn repeated what she had said, clearly and in a low voice. Someone passed by them, without paying attention, and went on his way.

  “I must go for him,” she said.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I'll go, whether you want to or not,” Caleb insisted.

  “Well, I do not want to.”

  “I'll...” he began again, but before he could continue Evelyn sprinkled it with a little ettalim. Caleb stumbled backward, bluntly, and Evelyn took him by the wrist to steady him. He remained still and with his sight dissipated, and so he would continue for the next five minutes.

  Evelyn kissed him on the lips. Caleb did not react, nor blinked, was it like kissing a stone statue.

  Then the girl left him there, between the shelves of books, and left the Public Library to the secret parking of the Agency where she would take one of the four vans. The trajectory towards Brooklyn promised to be long. But it would be worth it, because she was going to save his father. She tried to remove from her head images that created her own consciousness about the state in which her father was, but she did not succeed. She pulled up the hood of her jacket and went outside. In effect, it was a beautiful day.

  * * *

  As she had imagined, the journey home was long, alm
ost like a small eternity. And there she was at last. She parked the truck at the end of the street and went down. The children of the neighborhood played their games, and their parents watched them diligently from the porches of their houses. No one noticed the girl crossing the street to residence —105— with mysterious airs.

  Evelyn had learned how to go unnoticed and with ease among people, thanks to Tadhg's advice. She had already put her techniques several times into practice on the days she had to go outside and surround herself with the restless New Yorkers. The open hood, the low and serene sight, and the quick and graceful movements, were the main base of everything.

  She climbed the few concrete steps to the door of her house. She noticed that the dense blue crystal had been changed by a new one from the previous one that had been fragmented by the pyxis the night it all started for Eve. Eve raised her hand, was about to knock on the door when she realized that it was already open. She brought her palm open to the glass and pushed slightly inward. As she entered and closed the door again, with great care, the beating of her heart was increasing. She felt that she was drowning.

  The silence and the somber light that enveloped the lean hall gave the place, which for a lifetime had been Evelyn's home, a chilling air. It was too quiet, and she camouflaged herself with it and with the shadows. She took out the defibrillator and aimed with a firm hand towards the front, until then she’d not realized that the weapon had an infrared light that illuminated towards the target in the distance as it was the weapon of a sniper. Deep breathed. She continued down the narrow corridor. She did not go upstairs, where the rooms were, because she knew almost certainly that she would not find her father there. The strange sensation led her, like an unknown instinct, towards the living room. And she was right

  Her father was there. Someone had covered the windows with pieces of cardboard and duct tape. The darkness was almost absolute. However, she managed to see two silhouettes sitting on the long piece of furniture, with their faces covered by bales and with their hands and feet tied. One of those silhouettes, tall and stocky, was her father's. Evelyn screamed and hurried toward him. She put the defibrillator aside, on the cabinet, and pulled the bundle from his head.

  Yes, it was her father.

  Evelyn gave him a little cheek so that he would open his eyes with one hand, and with the other, she would untie the tight knot that held him immobile from his hands. Her father was numb, unconscious. Eve managed to remove the knot from his hands and feet in less than a minute of intense struggle. She sighed, and set out to untie the man next to her father. She confirmed, taking the bundle out of his head, that it was Ed.

  He opened his eyes a little, just a crack, before closing them again. Evelyn acted quickly and untied the knots that caught him. Then she got up and went to the main window, which faced the street. A little less than a step from the window, one of her steps produced a creak. It was the curtain of folding lamellas that someone had bothered to remove from its place before being replaced by cardboard and tape.

  She barely managed to tear off a small piece of cardboard before it stopped when she heard...

  “Evelyn.”

  It was her father.

  Evelyn turned. Her father was regaining consciousness, confused and still asleep. Eve approached.

  “Dad,” she said when she was before him, “who has done this to you?”

  If he understood, her father did not show it. He closed his eyes again.

  “Dad,” she whispered.

  Her father relaxed again, so much that he seemed to have fallen asleep.

  “It was him,” her father whispered, lethargic. “Was… him…”

  Evelyn's heart was beating in crescendo.

  “Who?” She said, suppressing the urge to scream.

  Her father stood still for a moment. And she muttered a word:

  “Silence…”

  Evelyn sat back, absorbed. “Silence.” No, it was not a simple word. It was a name.

  She tilted her head towards Ed, and watched the grimace of intense surprise that covered his face like a mask. His dark gray eyes, not quite as extraordinary as Caleb’s, were fixed and filled with fear beyond the view of Evelyn. She remembered one of Tadhg’s advice while uttering a curse. “Never let your guard down.”

  She got up, following Ed’s frightened gaze, and a shadow obscured the light.

  * * *

  When she awoke, her head felt numb. Someone—or something—had hit her hard on the temple. She noticed a metallic taste in her mouth, which she attributed to the adhesive paste. She tried to move, but that attempt was unsuccessful. She was bound hand and foot with duct tape. They even put a piece of tape in her mouth, so when she tried to articulate a word, she blurted out a string of incongruities that even she did not know what she meant.

  Focused on the view. While she was sitting motionless on the floor, with her back against the TV table, her father and Ed were sitting in front of her on the long piece of furniture, conscious. Whoever was behind this had tied the two men back with the same hemp ropes and put masking tape on their lips, just like her.

  Evelyn stared at her father and nodded slowly, stating that it was okay. His father seemed no calmer at all with that answer, for he made an unproductive attempt to free himself from his bonds. Evelyn took the moment to look to the sides.

  The cardboard line that had been torn from the window, allowed the entry of an opaque beam of light. It was late, surely. How long was he unconscious? She wondered. She cocked her head. There were only three of them in the room. Her father was still struggling with her tie, unsuccessfully, and Ed was as still and imperturbable as a garden ornament.

  Then there were footsteps. Evelyn held her breath. Her father tensed and looked at her uneasily. Ed crouched back like a frightened cat, opening his eyes wide and stammering what might be a plea, if he did not have a tape in his mouth and a problem of acute stuttering. After a moment, the man who had done all this appeared.

  “You?” Evelyn stammered.

  “Well,” said Siphrus Wayne, laughing, “you've finally woken up!”

  Evelyn began to writhe in anger, while glaring at the man with her eyes.

  “Easy, Fury,” he said, raising his hands and making a placating gesture. “Everything will end soon.”

  Wayne was dressed in clothes as simple as the last time: loose dirty shirt, sweatpants, and white sneakers. He had picked up his dreadlocks with a worsted hat in the colors green, yellow and red. Even though his complexion was tanned, Evelyn noticed that he was paler. And his eyes were no longer brown, but black, absolute black.

  “Oh, no,” thought Evelyn. “Avalh.”

  Wayne leaned over her and pulled the duct tape from her mouth with a quick jerk. Evelyn gave a moan of pain when the burning sensation split the lower part of her face. Her father was exacerbated, he threw himself forward and fell against the floor like a sack of potatoes.

  Wayne turned to him, snapping his gums and shaking his head.

  “Don’t do that, Mr. White,” he said. “You could hurt yourself.”

  He straightened the huge man who was Evelyn’s father with impressive ease.

  “Did you do this?” Evelyn asked, furious. “Are you the Doctor Silence?”

  Wayne turned to her.

  “Doctor Silence,” he repeated with a giggle. “So you know who he is.” It was not a question. The possessed man smiled.

  “Yes.”

  Wayne ran his hand down his sweaty neck.

  “I don’t have that honor,” he said. “But I must admit that I am at your service.”

  Evelyn noticed that the voice was more serious and stifled than the last time.

  “Where is? Silence…?”

  “Not here, of course.” He smiled before adding: “The Doctor has returned to his time. Apparently he had more important things to do in his day than to take charge of a whiny little girl like you.” He shook his shoulders, hopping; then he bent down
to make his dark, attractive face level with Evelyn’s. “But he has left me in charge of his servants.”

  “Well, they have failed. The agents arrested the pyxis today, when they planned to assassinate the Russian chancellor.”

  Wayne raised an eyebrow.

  “They did?”

  “Yes.” Evelyn tried to sound blunt, but her voice cut off when she realized that Wayne’s question had a setback. “What do you mean?”

  Laughing like a mischievous child, Wayne got to his feet and arched his back like a cat stretching.

  “Well, it was not exactly a great champion for our beloved agents of the future,” he commented. “Doctor Silence is superior. He foresaw that the agents would act against his servants this day, for that reason he only sent a few to the City Hall. Three pyxis’olrut and one szoth do not represent an important battle for our beloved agents, as they have shown before in the hospital.” He raised an eyebrow. His words were like a slap to Evelyn. “I'm afraid it was all a pantomime, dear Fury, an imitation of what was previously planned. Let's call it,” he added with a giggle, “an improvisation.”

  “Son of…”

  They heard a growl, and Evelyn broke off. Her father gave him an exalted look.

  “So, Fury,” Wayne said, “hold your tongue.”

  He put the hand in the pocket and made an obscene gesture towards the crotch. He burst out laughing as he pulled out a dark obsidian rock.

  “Remember these?” He asked Eve.

  Evelyn pressed her lips together. Yes, she remembered it. It was the rock she had dropped that night. Then she had forgotten about it.

  “The agents forgot it in the room the last time they were here,” he continued. “Although it is difficult to believe that professionals like them have been so careless.” He snapped the gums again as he shook his head.