by LE Barbant
Brooke’s response was cold as ice. “You fucking cowards.”
“It was me, Brooke. I was the deciding vote.”
A freight train ran through her head. She turned toward the slight African-American man at the end of the table.
“Vince?” Her tone pleaded.
The man stood. His eyes glassed over. “Brooke, I have a fiduciary duty to our shareholders. I take that seriously. A duty to this company—to this city. I took another look at the books, and it was impossible. You couldn’t do it—no one could have. I wish you had that kind of power but we need to salvage what we can, and that can’t wait seven months. Fong has a deal with the Chinese that won’t last.”
Her eyes were frozen daggers aimed at her father’s best friend. “Vince, you told me you were in. You had my back.”
Vince Charles’ Adam’s apple rose in slow motion, then sank. A tear broke from a glassy eye, its trajectory halted by the wire frame of his glasses. “This is having your back, Brooke. Someday, maybe a long time from now, you’ll understand that.”
Brooke scanned the room, looking each board member in the eye. “You’ll pay for this.”
Van Pelt started to laugh. “How pathetically cliché. Just when are we going to pay, Brooke? Huh? We’ve been paying our dues for years. And all you’ve done is continue to drag your daddy’s company down. And for what? Pittsburgh?” He paused, waiting for her to look up. “Fuck Pittsburgh. It’s just a burned-out has-been of a city. Just like the Alarawn family. And we’re finally laying that family to rest.”
Brooke walked toward the door and stopped at its threshold.
Snapping open her handbag, she withdrew a plastic syringe.
“Alarawns never rest, you motherfucker.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The IKEA clock read 7:04—almost an hour before Elijah was supposed to meet Willa at the bar. The afternoon had been largely unproductive. His mind, occupied by fantasy, was unable to make sense of the facts. He sighed, looking at the notes in front of him. Though they were written in his own hand, they struck the academic as the ravings of a madman. He grimaced at the self-deprecating insinuation.
Maybe I am crazy.
Closing his notes, he walked toward the tiny bedroom. His pants and socks dropped into the growing pile of dirty laundry littering the floor. The chaos of the week bled into his usually ordered domestic habits. He turned toward his bathroom and flicked on the harsh overhead light. The tile floor was pleasantly cool on his bare feet. Elijah took off his button-up and gingerly pulled the white tee over his head. The motion was painful. Cuts and bruises proved, at the very least, that something traumatic had happened the other night.
He surveyed his battered body in the bathroom mirror. The bandage on his chest was dark with aged blood and pus from the wound underneath. Clenching his teeth, he peeled back that cloth.
What the hell?
The most curious aspect of his injuries was the large burn centered on his upper torso. He struggled to imagine where it could have come from. Staring at himself in the mirror, its origin now became clear.
An intricate scar, a square with two intersecting ovals, was branded onto his body. It was a perfect facsimile of Thomas Alarawn’s medallion. Elijah’s stomach turned. He ran his index finger over the distinct, symmetrical design—its harsh lines aggressively displayed in the fluorescent light.
It can’t be.
Elijah stumbled toward his nightstand and threw open the drawer. He reached for the pendant, but it wasn’t there. Pulling the drawer from the table and dropping it on the floor, he looked back into the empty space hoping it had somehow fallen behind. Nothing. The historian scoured the room, desperate but unable to uncover the missing artifact.
His mind turned to Brooke. He was so self-conscious in her presence that he had failed to notice how odd she had been acting. The booze-filled flirtation was interspersed with so many questions: about the medallion, about his wounds, and about the day at the old mill.
Why would she have taken it?
He grabbed his phone and opened the contacts, scrolling to Brooke’s name.
Elijah stared at the drop ceiling, considering his next move.
Hey. Thanks for hanging out ;). Let’s do it again sometime
He hit send and hoped that he could troll her into giving some information. Throwing the phone on the bed, Elijah moved toward the bathroom and turned on the shower at full heat.
****
Brooke Alarawn had dominated his thoughts on the ride across town. One moment he pictured her with the medallion, the next entangled in his sheets. Finally, as the bus pulled up to his stop, the two thoughts merged. Worst case scenario: Brooke came to his apartment, got him drunk, and gave him the craziest sexual experience of his life with the sole purpose of stealing the medallion. Elijah considered it a fair trade.
But why the subterfuge? The medallion was already hers. Her deception, though pleasant, was unnecessary. Why wouldn’t he have given it back to her?
Unless she thought it contained some sort of power…
It seemed Brooke Alarawn was now another part of his mystery.
Turning the corner toward the bar, his thoughts transitioned from Brooke to Willa. His consideration of the power was not completely unencumbered by attraction either. She had all the attributes that Elijah always wanted: intelligence, looks, wit. She was also an academic, which, for the most part, he considered a win. There was the tiny detail that she might have drugged and beat the hell out of him, spinning an elaborate fairy tale—likely for no reason more than her personal amusement. But every girl has some flaws.
Damn women.
Elijah gave his shirt a fresh tuck as he stood outside the bar. He considered pulling it out but decided that the look was far too late twenties/early thirties for him—better to play the part that age had given him.
Universal bar smell punched him in the face as he opened the door.
Sal’s was nearly empty. Tuesday nights were generally slow, but in a college town there was no telling how many people would skip the cafeteria in favor of cheap drink specials and greasy bar food.
Willa sat at the far end of the room, a martini glass her only companion. She pushed a lonely olive around the bottom of the glass with a swizzle stick. With her chin resting on her fist, she looked like a tired caricature of the depressed woman alone at the bar.
The image struck him, and he felt deep guilt. Throughout the day, his thoughts had congregated around women, sex, and himself. Which, being male, wasn’t necessarily a surprise. But Willa’s presence reminded him of larger stakes—of Sean and his untimely death.
He pictured slamming into him in front of Hillman Library. The boy had clearly been desperate. But also so excited, like he was in the presence of a legend. Elijah brushed him off like he would any other student outside of office hours.
“Come here often?” Elijah asked. He slid onto the empty stool adjacent to Willa.
Black rings hung under swollen eyes. The historian could feel her hurt. The boy obviously had meant something to her. “Hey, Eli-sha,” she said, lightly slurring his name. “Thanks for showing up.”
They looked out over the bar, the local sports game du jour filling the silence between them.
Elijah’s hand landed on her back and slid up and down. There was nothing sexual about it. This was a wake, not a date—and any song playing from the juke box was an elegy.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Willa turned; their eyes locked. A single tear broke from her eye and ran for her chin. Elijah ignored his instinct to wipe it from her face.
“What’ll it be?” The voice of the tattooed bartender broke the intensity of the moment.
Elijah considered how badly he needed a drink. “Any IPAs on draft?”
The man turned his head toward the handles. “Southern Tier and Bell’s Two Hearted. But the Bell’s is about ready to kick.”
“I better go with that then.” He tried to fake a smile an
d turned back to his sullen drinking partner. “I ran into that kid, Sean, the other day. Didn’t know who he was, but he was claiming he was there with you when we got into ‘our fight.’”
Willa nodded. “He was there, but he wasn’t supposed to be. Sean’s the one who told me that something was happening, said he could sense the creature’s presence inside of you. Like a fool I went along with him. I had to know you were OK, I guess. I didn’t even consider the danger until I chased you stumbling outside. But really, when it comes down to it, he was the one who saved me.” Willa stared back at her glass. “Saved me from you.”
Elijah slid his hand across the tarnished bar and placed it on her forearm. His eyes took in her silhouette; hers remained fastened on the martini. “It’s not your fault.”
Willa’s tear-filled eyes turned toward her companion. “So, you believe me?” She bit her lip.
“I’m starting to believe that you believe it, Willa.” The two sat for a while like wax figures captured in a museum. “You understand why it’s hard for me to accept it though, don’t you? What if I claimed that you secretly turned into a monster? But you didn’t remember any of it. How would you react?”
“I’d give you a chance,” Willa said, pulling her arm away. “Sean shouldn’t have been there. But if he hadn’t been, you would’ve killed me. I wasn’t strong enough. “
Elijah lost his breath. “I wouldn’t have.”
“Well, that thing that borrowed your body was certainly trying to. I strengthened Sean because I knew he wouldn’t back down. That was a mistake. When you hit him, my spell absorbed the impact. I think that’s why he thought he could be one of us. Sean believed he had some great power. But it was just me.”
Elijah’s head swam with questions about powers and spells and monsters, but he kept them to himself. It wasn’t the time for a metaphysical debate.
The screeching sound of steel on tile interrupted his reflection. Chem perched on the stool next to Willa. Elijah assumed she must have invited him. Towering over her, the chemist looked almost angry.
“I guess they let anybody in here on a Tuesday night,” Chem said with a grin. “Sorry about the kid. We did all we could.”
Willa’s tears flowed with a new steadiness. “I just keep thinking that if we hadn’t pushed him away—if I hadn’t—he could have been protected. What the hell was he doing?”
“Who knows? Fighting crime? Selling drugs? Something worse?”
“No. Not Sean. All he wanted was to work with us,” Willa sobbed.
Chem popped a handful of peanuts into his mouth. Elijah was surprised by his lack of tact. “Well, I’m not so sure about that.”
“What?” Willa asked. Her eyes narrowed.
“I’m not trying to start trouble. I’m just asking, how well’d you know this kid?” Chem’s elbows rested on the bar, his hands pressed against each other as if he were in prayer.
“Screw you,” Willa spat. She whistled and waved the empty martini glass at the bartender.
“Alright,” Chem said, “I’m a bastard. But who knows who this kid really was? He could have had amazing powers—apparently that’s going around. But he also could have been a deranged nineteen-year-old trying to get into the panties of Dr. Miss Poetry here.” Chem pushed his index fingers around in the bowl of nuts. “Or, he could have been one of the bad guys.”
“Bad guys?” Elijah raised his brows.
“Dammit, E. Don’t you watch movies? When there’s people like us, there’s always bad guys. What use would we be if there weren’t? Listen, time to knock all this shit off and embrace the fact that when you get mad, or hot and bothered, or something, you go all Bruce Banner on us. You watched that video, right?”
“The one you sent?” Elijah snorted. “Anybody could have put that together. But say there was an enormous metal monster—that certainly wasn’t me.”
Chem sipped the bourbon the barkeep placed in front of him. “Stop lying to yourself. It was you, and you need to accept it. It’s probably gonna happen again. And we might need the stronger, tougher you sooner rather than later, buddy.”
The chemist was pissing him off. “Come on, man, you want me to believe this magic bullshit too—no offense, Willa.”
The poet responded with a tilt of her glass.
“I’m not talking about magic,” Chem said. “I’m talking about science.”
“You damn scientists think that’s a trump card or something. Like the rest of us just have to accept your authority. Well, I know a quack when I see one.”
Elijah put down his beer with a sigh. Whether it was the alcohol or the absurdity of the discussion, his head was spinning. He got to his feet. “I need to piss.”
“Hurry up, Tinman, I have something to show you and Ms. Dickinson here.”
Standing at the urinal, Elijah half-read the write-up of the Penguins’ latest win that was pinned on the wall. If there were any town that could rival his Boston for religious devotion to sports, this would be it.
He threw cold water on his face. His senses seemed to return. Some part of him trusted Willa and Chem. He had no idea why. Maybe it was their persistence, or more likely it was the increasingly strange events. But the mind of the historian was not easily swayed by myth. He needed hard facts. Evidence. He made a mental note to stop leaving his glass unattended when the chemist was around.
“Here you go. Check this out,” Chem said.
A laptop had materialized on the bar while Elijah was away. The historian got back on the stool and squinted at the grainy, black-and-white security footage that filled the screen. “What’s this, your local 7-Eleven?”
“It’s my lab. And apparently, something crazy went down there last night, while all the little boys and girls were tucked in their beds.”
Chem hit play, and Willa’s mouth dropped open, just slightly. “That’s him. That’s Sean. But who’s that other guy?”
“I know exactly who that is,” Elijah said, taking in the moving image of the large, bald man. “That’s my boss’s muscle, Rex. He drives me around the city. That guy,” Elijah pushed his finger against the screen, “was there for my first blackout. I thought it was just a coincidence.”
The video only took thirty-two seconds, but Willa immediately asked him to play it again.
“What did they take?” Willa asked.
Chem stood, reached over, and closed the laptop. He rubbed his hands over his face and then through his kinky black hair. “You two aren’t going to like this.” He nodded in the direction of Elijah. “You better keep an eye on the Hulk, Willa.”
Elijah’s face grew warm. He had no idea where this was going, but he already knew it wasn’t good. “What did you do?”
Taking a step back, Chem leaned against the stainless steel wall. He put himself in a corner, whether defensive or submissive, Elijah wasn’t sure. “It was your blood, Elijah.”
“My what? You gave them my blood?”
Chem laughed. “First of all, I didn’t give them anything, they took it. Secondly, it wasn’t exactly your blood. Well, it started that way, but I…I changed it.”
Willa took a step toward the chemist, as if she might strike him. “You actually tried to enhance the blood of a monster? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about fat stacks, maybe the cover of Time. You know, what all three of us are here for. Fame. Money. Prestige. Hell, I’d be happy with healthcare. You two would have done the same thing in my situation.”
Elijah placed his hand on Willa’s shoulder, as if to hold her back. Looking at Chem, he asked, “What will it do?”
“If I was successful? It’ll turn that guy into you.”
Elijah felt Willa’s shoulder stiffen. Her sudden fear was the most convincing piece of evidence he had yet to see.
“Just like him?” Willa asked.
Chem wrung his hands, and then jammed them into the pockets of his jeans. “No. Not exactly. If everything goes according to plan, it’ll make him bigger and stronger. And
he’ll have complete control too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Lights shimmered in every direction throughout PPG Place. While Oakland was King’s home, downtown was his retreat—especially during the winter months. Leaning against a giant concrete planter, he took in his surroundings. The square was walled in by the glass of the large PPG buildings. Their spires cast a cyberpunk vibe over the complex. An ice rink rivaling Rockefeller Center sat in the middle.
The sound of laughter swept out across the ice and echoed off the glass walls. King was in an urban disco ball.
Not seeing any cops, he lit his bowl and took a long hit. Almost instantly, the scenery became more dreamlike. He closed his eyes and exhaled. A woman, with a child in tow, passed through his cloud and gave him a sideways glance.
“Evening, ma’am. Sorry to disrupt your experience.”
She pulled her kid closer, and double-timed it toward the rink. If people viewed him like a homeless man in Oakland, they treated him as a criminal downtown
“Hey, King.”
Standing just off to his left was a wiry kid of thirteen or fourteen. His puffer jacket was a well-worn hand-me-down, still a size too big.
King pocketed his pipe and smiled at the boy.
“Marcus, what’s up, little man?”
“Not much. Gramma’s takin’ us skating.”
“Oh, yeah. Where’s she at?” King scanned the crowd looking for Roberta.
“She’s over there.” Marcus raised an overstuffed arm. King assumed he was pointing, though his hand was swallowed by the jacket. “Laquisha’s having a fit—thought I’d take a walk.”
“I hear that. How’s school doing? You getting all As?”
“B in science, but otherwise, top of my class.”
“That’s my man,” King said. He held out a fist and Marcus returned a parka-covered fist-bump.
As King turned away from the boy, he was nearly knocked over by a couple sprinting for the doors of PPG Tower. “Whoa, settle down folks,” he yelled, more playful than angry. ]
