The rifle thundered.
The explosion from the weapon sent a shock wave through the air in front of me. I stayed frozen in my firing position, waiting a full second before letting up on my trigger finger. The air filled with the stench of propellant. The sound of the shot echoed around the street. I had been perfectly lined up, the scope’s crosshair center mass on the target. But Chronos was still standing there, and now he was looking in my direction.
Chapter Twenty-Three
My hands were trembling with fear as I pulled the bolt out of the rifle and dropped in a second round. I fumbled with the bullet but got it seated. Replacing the bolt was taking a couple of seconds too long. I tried to block out the rest of the world and focused on reloading. The splitting ringing in my head muted everything.
Down in the intersection, Chronos stepped into the air as if swept up by a breeze. He was flying my way. I picked the rifle up and shouldered it. I had him in my sights. That’s easy when something’s coming straight at you, but it wasn’t an ideal firing position. I took the shot. Even with me leaning on the butt of the stock, the rifle bucked hard in my grip and hammered my shoulder. The boom rattled my teeth. I lowered the rifle and knew I had missed. Chronos remained in the air and now he was flying faster in a downward arc straight at me.
Ditching the rifle, I turned and ran. I vaulted a handrail to a ramp and landed hard on the concrete below. The wide alley down the side of the building was clean with no cover and few places to hide. It didn’t matter. He was moving too quickly and all I could try to do was sprint away.
Then the hero landed in front of me. His cape fluttered into place behind him as he straightened to look down at me. His hard expression held no humanity. His mouth parted in a grin that showed his teeth. Then I noticed a gash along his side. A rip in his black uniform revealed an angry red welt.
Had I done that?
He took a step towards me and I stepped back. His right hand went to the wound on his side. He rubbed at the blood on his fingertips.
“Do I know you?” he asked. His voice was deep, booming, assured, but the blood coating his fingers seemed to be confusing him.
“No,” I said. “Yes. You should but you don’t.”
Another step closer.
“There’s something familiar about you,” he said. He inhaled through his nose. “I’ve smelled you before.”
And here I had been worrying about him hearing me when I broke into his house.
“You hurt me,” he continued.
“You killed that EMT. And Lightshow.”
He kept trying to crowd me. As I walked backward, I pulled the magnum from its holster. He appeared distracted, as if he was listening to someone else.
“You were where you shouldn’t have been,” Chronos said. “It was you in my place. You. Why were you there?”
We were running out of alley. I was almost against a wall.
A rush of emotion came and I choked on my words. “You killed my parents.” Tears stung my eyes but I held them back.
“I did? Oh. Are you sure?”
“Yes. You crushed them. Just another accident, everyone said. And you went on like it was just another day.”
“Wasn’t it, though?”
“My life ended that day. Now I’m going to kill you.”
His smile widened as I raised the weapon with both hands. He moved quickly to snatch the revolver from my grip. My reflexes took over and I stepped to the side so he grabbed air. This caught his attention.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
He tried for the gun again. I didn’t think, just moved. He missed. Now he looked angry. He was trying to say something but his words were caught in a stammer.
“You’re sick,” I said. “Something’s really wrong with you. Something always has been wrong. After today everyone will know it.”
“D-d-don’t say that,” he said. He swung a backhand blow. I dodged as he slammed the wall where I’d been standing and cracked the stone. He squinted at me as if I were a bright object. “You have something of ours.”
I knew right away he was talking about the locket under my shirt. I didn’t think he had x-ray vision or anything silly like that, but somehow he knew it was there.
He grabbed for me with both hands. I hopped back, raised the pistol, and fired. My reflexes made me feel like my hands and arms were moving on their own. He tried to dodge but I followed. The gun went off in his face. Chronos fell back with a hand to his cheek. More blood.
He moaned. “How did you do that?” he croaked.
My heart was hammering. Perhaps the wound on his side was a fluke, but I had just shot Chronos and hurt him a second time. The barrel of the revolver went down as I stared.
Big mistake.
He launched himself forward. I tried to duck, dodge, and twist away as he swatted at me. Then I caught a glancing blow that landed on my lower back like a sledgehammer and sent me sailing. The revolver slipped out of my grip as I hit the alley pavement hard. My lungs couldn’t take in air. The lower half of my body was filled with pain, and for a panicked moment I thought my legs weren’t working. My muscles were a mess of spasms as I tried to rise.
“It was you who broke into my home,” he said, this time with certainty. “You stole from me. And now you’ve hurt me.”
I began to scramble away. His odd smile had returned. For all I knew we were now the only two people in the world and he was free to finish me. I reached the opposite side of the alley but had nowhere else to go as he kept pace with me. The revolver was too far away. I turned to look up at him and clutched the locket.
He stared at me for a moment. As if making up his mind about something, he said, “Be good, sister.”
And then Chronos launched himself up into the air and away from me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A cop with a thick neck and plump cheeks hovered over me and told me to stay put, but I got myself up to a sitting position. The stabbing discomfort in my lower back radiated along my spine and ribs. When I breathed in I felt sharp pain. The cop was asking me questions, none of which were registering. Too many sounds were pressing in around me. The acute concentration I had achieved when facing Chronos had evaporated. Now my world was filled with horns, sirens, radios, voices, and cries for assistance from responders and victims out on the street.
The cop didn’t appear to be wary of me. After all, my weapons were gone. But I still wore an empty holster. Perhaps he hadn’t gotten a good look at it. If no one had seen me shooting at Chronos it would be a miracle. The last thing I needed was to be detained.
“You have to stay put and someone will come and get you checked out,” the cop was saying. “An ambulance is coming. I’ll stay with you.”
“I’m okay,” I said. “There are others that need your help. I fell, that’s all.”
“Chronos was down here with you. Did he attack you?”
I had no idea what the cop had seen. “He must have thought I was someone else.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He told me to be good before flying off.”
The cop clenched his jaw in frustration. He was worrying about Chronos. Had the police seen what their hero had done to the EMT? Maybe something could be salvaged from this disaster.
I used the wall of the alley to rise. “My mom’s in one of the cars out there. I have to find her.”
“You look pretty scraped up. If you hit your head you need to stay put.”
“Help me to the street and I’ll sit down.”
I hung on the cop’s arm as we walked up the alley to the front of the insurance building. At least twenty or thirty cops and firefighters were sifting through the wrecked vehicles.
“Is right here okay?” I asked, nodding to the steps. “I’ll wait here. I promise.”
The cop got me settled in but wasn’t leaving. My rifle was somewhere on top of the steps. But several survivors were sitting around nearby with injured limbs and rags held to bloody faces. More c
ity personnel were drifting in along with a number of good Samaritans. Too many eyes would be on me to casually collect my weapon. I worried what the cops would think of the rifle. Someone somewhere would have a camera rolling, and no doubt a dozen people had been recording the earlier action. Had my face been visible? My fingerprints were on the rifle.
But now that Chronos had committed murder, he would be the focus of the investigation.
Before I had to think of another lie to get away from the cop, he got on his radio. I snuck away. Up the stairs I found my rifle lying in the shadows near the entryway. Everyone here was in too much of a daze to notice. The case remained where I had left it. I was about to pick the rifle up when the same cop came up behind me.
“Miss. Miss. I need to get your information.”
“I didn’t see much,” I said. “It’s all a blur.”
“It always is after a traumatic event. But we’re going to want to talk to everyone who was here so we can figure out what happened. It’s important.”
He got out his paper and a pen. Then he looked past me to where the rifle lay.
“What have we here?” he asked.
When he bent down to inspect my rifle, I ducked away and trotted down the steps. I heard him calling for me to hold up but I only moved faster, weaving through the crowd on the sidewalk. I did a shoulder check. He wasn’t following. Perhaps he hadn’t yet made the connection between the rifle and me and leaving such a lethal weapon out in the open was a higher priority.
Still, it sucked leaving it and my revolver behind. An ambulance with sirens going full bore was weaving through traffic. I put my hands to my ears and marched back to where I had left my scooter.
I felt dizzy. The unreality of having faced Chronos down was setting in hard. I wasn’t sure what to make of our encounter. I had hurt him, but even with my rifle I had essentially only scratched him. But he could be hurt. My reflexes had helped, but they hadn’t been enough. They hadn’t kept him from smacking me good, either, and I was certain if he had struck me full on I would be a gob of bloody toothpaste on the wall of the alley.
But right now the sounds, smells, and crush of cars and people were overwhelming me and I had to get out of there. I needed time to breathe and think.
My scooter was gone.
I walked around the corner of the street like an idiot as if believing it had been parked someplace different. Even in the midst of a disaster, thieves had been lurking and waiting to steal an unlocked scooter.
“Just great.”
I was too beat to scream or throw a tirade. So I walked. With what I guessed was a busted rib, each step was a minor agony. Somewhere during my forced march I checked my phone. I half expected it to be smashed, but besides a small crack on one corner of the case it was intact.
Carter had sent a couple of texts. Where are you? and I’m not at the museum yet.
Collapsing into the seat of the Prius and breathing in some AC sounded good at that moment. Then I realized the streets well beyond the financial district were all completely gridlocked.
I replied to him and he responded immediately. He had gotten stuck in traffic but had managed to park the car. We met down the block south of where I was. Worry filled his face when he saw me.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Got banged up a little. Might have a broken rib.”
“What happened?”
“Can we get to your car first?”
Carter shook his head. “I don’t know how much good it will do. All of Manhattan is like this. There’s some sort of electrical problem and a good portion of the subway lines between here and Brooklyn are out.”
“Because of Gloom and Lightshow? That’s all over.”
“I don’t know about the subway, but there’s been a dozen or more road rage incidents. A bunch of fights spilling out onto the street. It’s not everybody but enough to mess everything up. Then there were reports of a big flash visible in broad daylight from down south.”
I pulled up my news app.
A third meteor had come down just an hour before and this one had struck land somewhere in Virginia. Finding facts in my brief search was a challenge, but it seemed to have landed near the shore of Chesapeake Bay by Norfolk. Some early footage showed a mushroom cloud of the impact that made it look like a hydrogen bomb going off. One headline said that Norfolk was gone.
I felt numb.
The death toll and devastation were being guessed at, but no one could be reached in a number of cities near the impact site. Three meteors so far. How many more were coming? One a day, and the earth wouldn’t last a month.
Carter shepherded me along. He took my phone when I almost dropped it. The growing crowds in the street were mostly milling about, but as the traffic gave no indication of clearing, many began to join us in walking south. It was time to head for the bridge and get out of town.
***
I froze when I saw him.
Chronos floated above the Brooklyn Bridge, hanging limp in the air as if suspended by an unseen hook. His arms dangled at his sides. Between his slack posture and the twisting cape that danced around him, he looked like an apparition.
Beneath him, the bridge was jammed with traffic and the pedestrian path was full. At least the walking traffic was moving. A number of bikes and scooters pushed their way past us as Carter and I approached the entry to the pedestrian walkway. Many eyes were turned skyward towards the distant hero, who appeared oblivious to everyone beneath him.
For some reason I felt certain he was there because of me. I hesitated to set foot on the bridge with him up there. If he detected me and attacked, there would be nowhere to run. I would be trapped.
Taking Carter aside, I tried to fill him in on what had happened. But Carter was having a hard time hearing as I whispered. Trying to speak any louder hurt my head.
“I hurt him,” I said a little too loud. “I hurt him, and he might be after me.”
It was Carter’s turn to look up at the hero levitating above the bridge. He was good at masking emotions, but I saw something like a scowl cross his face.
“Then we find a place to hole up for now,” Carter said. “You need to rest. And we need to think about what to do next.”
I wasn’t used to doing what anyone told me, and even in my befuddled state I wanted to plant my feet and do the opposite of what Carter suggested. But it made sense. We retreated back through the throng. The thought of entering any of the nearby packed restaurants made me feel panicky. Down on Water Street we found a small park with an unoccupied bench in the shade.
Getting off my feet felt like heaven but breathing remained a chore. I lifted my shirt and probed my side where Chronos had struck me. It was tender. A wide swathe of skin was transforming into a giant dark bruise.
Carter left me for a few minutes and returned with a bottle of water.
I gulped some down, coughed, and drank more. My throat was dry. When I offered him some he shook his head. Then I finished the bottle.
“How did you keep him from killing you?” he asked.
“My reflexes saved me. I think they also helped me actually hit him. But neither of my weapons did much. I dropped both of them trying to avoid getting killed.”
“Couldn’t you have flown away? Didn’t you say you could fly?”
I shrugged. “It didn’t kick in.”
“So you’re good at dodging, you can’t fly, you can hear really well, and you’ve lost your weapons. Where does that leave us?”
I shook my head. Hearing my limitations was only fueling my runaway sense of growing frustration. Again I resisted the urge to tell Carter about the locket. What business of his was it? Besides, it might put him in danger. Chronos knew about it and wanted it back and I wasn’t about to take it off and give it to anyone. With it gone, I would have zero advantages.
“We know where he lives,” I said. “That’s a start. And whatever is happening is affecting him. He killed an EMT downtown. The cops saw that. There won’t be any coming back f
rom it. The city won’t forget.”
“Don’t be so sure. The cops have got bigger problems right now.”
“Not if Chronos decides to go full-on crazy like Slingshot did. If he decides to attack anyone, there’s nothing the police can do to stop him. He will avoid anything shot at him. There’s no hero or villain who’s strong enough to put a dent in him.”
“Need more water?”
“I’m good. We have to get going.” He waited for me to tell him where, but he had to know. It was time to go back to Dogwood. Now that I knew what was there, I felt certain we could find something to use as a weapon against the strongest man on the planet.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chronos was still a hundred feet in the air above the bridge, but he had drifted as if with the breeze and had moved further down over the East River. I could barely see him as we once again joined the shuffling crowd moving along the pedestrian walkway.
Carter tried to get me to head over to the Manhattan Bridge to give Chronos an even wider berth, but I vetoed the idea. It would take too long and at that distance I didn’t believe Chronos capable of picking me out of the crowd.
Be good, sister.
Had his parting words been a taunt or merely mad ravings?
A group of police officers were clustered nearby, talking on their radios and conferring with one another. They appeared uninterested in controlling the crowds or clearing traffic or stopping any of the idiots driving their scooters past the pedestrians along the walkway. Over the rail and down near the water I spotted more cops. Many of them had binoculars while others carried rifles. Their full attention was on the hero floating above the river. For now the police appeared content to watch. I didn’t feel any safer with them there.
But for all of Carter’s bad news, we didn’t see anyone exhibiting any psychotic behavior. Below us a few lanes of traffic had actually started to roll. Tow trucks were busy clearing vehicles that had stalled or been abandoned. I realized something was missing as I observed the scene around us.
Blood of the Masked God (Book 1): Red Wrath Page 16
