by LE Barbant
“Food?”
Elijah dropped a five on the sticky surface. “Man cannot live on fried green tomatoes alone. Let’s go. This Crane guy knew Edwin and knows Willa. He could hold all the answers.”
CHAPTER NINE
Three semesters of college and all Tim learned was that he didn't belong. This didn’t come as much of a surprise to the Steel City native. School had never been his strong suit—an idea reinforced by teachers from grade school on up. For the first half of his life, he thought he was an idiot. Two tours in the military taught him just how smart he was.
The mid-sized SUV was late model and sounded Asian. It had been traveling for thirty-five to forty minutes, using more gas than normal due to the additional passenger weight. They had traveled north out of the city, likely up route twenty-eight and turned west off the major artery. Judging by these factors and the road noise, Tim surmised they were on a farm in Valencia, maybe Mars—a rural town in Butler County.
All of this he gathered with a black bag over his head and hands bound in the SUV’s cargo space.
****
Tim Ford’s skills put him in a league above most men—the information he gathered during his short ride north confirmed that.
But that knowledge would serve little purpose unless he could get out of the room—and fast.
The room was compact, with solid wooden walls and a metal security door. From the temperature of the steel, he assumed it wasn't exterior. He was a prisoner, the room his cell.
Flexing his wrists, he could sense the power draining from his body. The feeling was rather benign, but he knew what was coming. Withdrawal from Chem's serum frightened him more than the robed wizards.
The serum—a mixture of Elijah’s freakish blood, synthetic compounds of Chem’s own design, and Willa’s magical tampering—had brought Tim back from the brink of death and put him in the action. A constant supply of the stuff had filled his veins for the past three months. But the chemical cocktail was a temporary fix, and every time it wore off it took a little of Tim Ford with it. But going off the stuff completely could be just as dangerous.
Tim had always chosen a rock over a hard place.
Ford knew he could be facing death, but his short life had taught him that the great beyond was always just around the corner. Most people spent their lives ignorant of this fact, but Tim had seen the truth firsthand, and he refused to close his eyes to the obvious. And yet, a guy couldn’t make it as a soldier without reminding himself that it wasn’t over until it was over. It kept you fighting, despite the odds. Tim had never shied away from punching in the fat lady’s teeth before she could start singing. Yet his past successes couldn’t ease the gnawing in his stomach. One day his number would be punched. The question was, how soon?
Tim sat on a cot pressed against the back wall. The mattress spring, hardly concealed by a thin layer of cotton, bit at his ass. An empty jug at the foot of the bed stared back at him. He knew what it was for, and though he considered using it, he wondered if pissing might speed his downward spiral toward incapacitation. How the serum worked to maintain his strength remained foreign to him. He decided against breaking the seal, just in case.
Making a move while he still had his unearthly power was an option, but those robes at the bar were no joke. He had yet to see any other wizards apart from the retrieval team, but wherever he was, it was obviously a sizeable location. While he might be able to take on one, or maybe two if he had the element of surprise, he could only imagine that the power of all of Hogwarts focused on little old him would not end well.
Tim squeezed his hands together, watching the tendons and muscles on his forearms ripple. He was well aware that the contours would soon fade.
"I’m fucked," Tim said into the room, too small to offer an echo.
He hadn't known most of them long, but he trusted Elijah, Chem, and even Rita. They had proven their fidelity in the face of danger on more than one occasion. He pictured the three of them, and maybe even the weasel, Rhett, hatching a plan to break him and Willa out of the Guild's compound. He only hoped that there would be something left of him to rescue.
With little else to do, he moved to the door and pushed again. Nothing. Tim was still strong and there should have been some give somewhere: in the hinges, doorframe, or the metal itself. Ford wasn't imprisoned by wood and steel, but by the magical powers of the Guild.
Well, they're not underestimating me. Tim couldn't help but grin with pride.
If the magicians had done their homework, they knew that before Chem and Willa’s serum Tim had been a one-man killing machine—after he was a walking pandemic.
****
Minutes turned into hours and the greater threat to Tim’s health became his own boredom. Sitting still had never been the man’s style and the serum increased his nervous energy right along with his strength and speed. He fought the urge to pace the cell.
The distinctive sound of a deadbolt—metal scraping along metal—brought Tim to his feet. If the Guild was half of the organization that he expected they were, his chances of getting out of this on his own were few and far between. His training with Special Ops taught him that when captured, the first thing for the soldier to do was assess their possibilities for escape. If impossible, conserve your energy, because when the cavalry comes you’d need it. Tim followed the rule to the letter, even more so since he could already feel the serum’s strength slipping away.
A short, robed figure stood shadowed in the doorway.
Tim eyed the available space between the magician and the doorjamb. He considered making a move, but better judgment kept him in place.
The figure lifted her hood, revealing a magician closer to the kid side of womanhood. She was no more than nineteen, though she held herself with a confidence of a much older woman. Black hair framed her angular features. Bright blue eyes pierced his. She could have been Willa’s younger sister. As far as Tim knew, she was.
“You’re a little young for an interrogator aren’t you?” Tim finally said.
The young girl smiled. “Trust me, Mr. Ford. We know all we need to about you. You’re all anyone’s been talking about around here.”
The magician stepped forward increasing the gap between her and the door. Tim's eyes cut to her left side, measuring the distance.
“They said you were clever.” Her smile broadened as she followed his stare to the open doorway. “Sure, you might make it past me, but I’m pretty good. It’s a bit of a gamble, really. But if you did get out, you’d have a couple dozen master-magicians to contend with. I know you’re all juiced up, but my money’s on the home team.”
Tim leaned back and let his shoulders rest against the rough wood wall. “Maybe you and your friends have underestimated me.”
Her smile turned to a laugh. “So, the arrogance checks out. No surprise the old men brought you in.”
Tim tilted his head to the side. He called them “her friends,” but she referred to them as the “old men”—like she was disassociating herself. That piqued Tim’s interest.
Maybe there’s a chance here after all.
“So what is this? You’ve just come to see ‘the abomination’ up close?”
She dropped her eyes. Tim could see the color rise on her pale face.
“The abomination…No, it’s just…I wondered if anyone had checked in on you. That’s all.”
Compassion. Either this kid’s being honest or this is one hell of a mind fuck.
“That’s very kind coming from the person keeping me locked up in this cage.” He put some heat in his words. She might try and distance herself from the Guild, but Tim was trying his hardest not to let her off the hook.
Thirty seconds passed by in silence.
Careful…don’t want to spook her.
“You and Ms. Weil are here for your crimes, and we’re nothing if not fair. There’s a process. You’ll see. We’re not monsters.”
Back to using we. Time to drive it home.
Tim sto
od up from the cot and took a step forward. He towered over her by at least a foot.
He expected her to shrink away from him, but she held her ground.
Maybe she wasn’t kidding about her skills.
“Willa did what she did to save me. If that’s criminal, then to hell with your process. And it’s hard to accept you’re not monsters when I’m being treated like a fuckin’ animal.”
To Tim’s surprise, she smiled. “Intentions don’t matter. And like I said, Mr. Ford, we know all about you. Save your fuckin’ tough guy act for someone else.”
She turned and walked away, leaving Tim standing like an idiot, jaw open.
As she turned to close the door, he called out to her. “Who the hell are you? Don’t I at least have a right to know the name of my warden?”
She paused then without looking back she said, “Hermione.”
“Wait. No shit?”
The girl looked over her shoulder and winked. “No. But you’d probably end up calling me that anyway, right?”
The door slammed shut and metal scraped against metal, returning him to his solitude.
But now he at least had something to occupy his mind.
The girl had let more slip than she had intended. She was tough, that much was clear. For someone that young to be that confident, it didn’t bode well for Tim’s chances. They obviously trained them well. But her hesitations revealed something else. The Guild, whatever the hell it intended, was far from one mind. Maybe Tim wouldn’t have to fight his way out of this one.
He sat back in his cot, replaying the conversation—looking for angles. But as he lay there, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe “Hermione’s” visit was more than a social call. Tim didn’t know what game the Guild was playing, but he worried that their little talk was an interrogation after all.
CHAPTER TEN
“Naturally, there’s a shit-ton of Cranes in Pittsburgh,” Elijah said. “But it didn’t take me long to find the one who’s an octogenarian and a retired English prof.” A smile spread across Elijah’s face, obviously pleased with his sleuthing.
The two sat at a small metal table in their cramped kitchen in Homestead. Chem looked up from his microwaved dinner and nodded appreciatively.
“Well, bingo bango, professor. Glad to see your fancy researching degree is good for something. Nice work.”
Their visit to Willa’s hadn’t given them much to go on other than a few veiled comments in her spellbook. Crane had helped Willa on at least one occasion and he seemed to know something about the magical world.
Elijah finished his meal then stood and cleared the table. Chem watched as he balanced his plate on the apex of an already full sink and brushed the crumbs from his shirt. The two had plenty of time to keep house, but saving the world always provided a reason to procrastinate.
“I think we should head over tonight. It’s the best lead we’ve got, and there’s no telling what those bastards are doing with Willa and Tim,” Elijah said.
Chem stared at his hands, refusing to make eye contact with the historian. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation. “I don’t know, E. I’m worried about them too, but we have no idea what we’d be walking into. Willa’s pretty powerful, but you saw what those guys were capable of the other night. They made her look like a damn novice. What if…what if this Crane guy is the Grandmaster Flash of the wizarding world or something? Going over there could be suicide. You at least got your powers, but without Willa here to pump up your jams, I don’t know if we’ve got what it takes to handle all of this.”
Chem fidgeted in his seat, waiting for Elijah’s response. The fight at Voodoo had shaken up the scientist in a way he hadn’t expected. He had come through for the group on several occasions and his medical training had certainly saved their lives. But he wasn’t a fighter. The notion of walking in on a master magician scared the hell out of him, and rightfully so. He had stepped into several of their fights, got his ass handed to him, and quickly crawled under whatever table he could find. Retreat was the smart decision. The team needed him in one piece. Chem thought of the bullshit scenes in post-apocalyptic movies where the characters allowed the last living doctor to walk into battle. This wasn’t a movie, and Chem wasn’t going in.
But fear wasn’t his only motivation. He had work to do.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Elijah said. “They have Willa. And Tim. We can’t just leave them to rot.”
“Elijah man, I—”
“It’s cool, I’ll go with you.”
The academics’ heads pivoted to find Rhett standing on the threshold between the kitchen and living room. The speechwriter leaned against the door jam, his impeccably tailored suit contrasting with their dirty white walls.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” Chem asked, trying to catch his breath.
Rhett smiled casually as if amused by the question.
“The door was open. Don’t you think it’s time you gave me a key?”
“No,” Chem and Elijah shouted in unison. Rhett shrugged then started rummaging around in their refrigerator.
Chem had warmed quickly to the odd man, even though he knew Elijah and Willa weren’t yet on board. The speechwriter’s power of persuasion toed some ethical lines, but it wasn’t like Chem’s work had always kept him on the straight and narrow. He had no ground to stand on in the world of judging another person’s moral compass, and he knew it.
“Are you sure? It could be dangerous,” Elijah said.
Rhett emerged from the fridge with a bottle of water. “I can take care of myself. Besides, if you go without me, there’s a good chance you’ll go all ‘beast mode.’ This kind of thing requires a bit more tact.”
Elijah crossed his arms and glared at the well-dressed man. He opened his mouth to respond but Chem cut him off.
“OK. You two cats go to see this Crane fellow, but be careful. That dude could be bad business. I’m going to make some more of that serum for Tim. He’s going to need something strong.” Chem’s temples pulsed as he clenched his jaw. “If we find him.”
****
Days of furious work had left the basement lab a disaster zone. Paper and rags were scattered among the boxes of chemical and medical supplies. Chem despised such working conditions. It was bad enough that he was forced to make do with the dank space and second-hand equipment, but now with multiple projects coinciding and little enough time to sleep, the disarray was almost dizzying. He dreamed of the world class lab that someone with his skills should be in.
Taking a minute to organize the space, Chem’s thoughts drifted to Tim. The two of them, while certainly an odd couple, had grown close over the past six months. Although there was plenty they disagreed on—in terms of method and mission—they understood one another. That had been enough to meld the pair as an effective team.
Chem glanced at his watch and then over at the spreadsheet sitting on a pile of textbooks. All things being equal, Tim would be running low on juice. Necessity had driven them to try the magically enhanced serum before testing it properly, and their haste had come at a terrible cost. There was still plenty he didn’t know about the substance, but it was clear that the side effects of withdrawing weren’t pretty. For months, Chem had supported the mercenary with a constant supply of the serum—a temporary fix until he could come up with a more permanent solution. But that cure remained hidden, and Tim had been absent for almost a full day. Chem didn’t know what would happen if his friend didn’t receive a fresh dose within the next 48 hours, and he didn’t want to find out.
“Damn it,” Chem said, rubbing the back of his neck. Fear for Tim’s health and frustration at the slow progress were getting to him. Without his guinea pig to provide blood samples he couldn’t accurately test the tweaks he made. He picked up the spreadsheets, ordered them into a neat pile, and sat them face down on an uneven shelf constructed with cinder blocks and a piece of warped wood. The clock was running and there was little he could do to prepare.
/> “How is it coming?” Rita’s familiar gurgle hit him in the back of the head. While he had become more accustomed to the woman, her presence still made his skin crawl.
“Slowly, I’m afraid,” he said, turning toward her. “I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to get to your project, but things have been a little crazy around here.”
A thin, almost serpentine tongue slipped out from her narrow mouth and swiped across the area where her lips used to be. “That’s not why I’ve come.” She adjusted her raincoat and stepped out of the shadows. “I heard about what happened at the bar.”
Chem stared. The only reason Rita ever appear in the basement lab was to push him on her project. She even went so far as to blackmail him. Although they resolved that difficulty, her sudden altruism gave him pause. “Oh. Right. Elijah and Rhett are following some leads we found in Willa’s apartment.” Chem motioned toward the table. “I’m working as fast as I can to modify the serum for Tim. Without Willa to add something extra to the secret sauce, I’m afraid the original recipe might not be enough to pull him out of the state we’re going to find him in. That is if we can find him at all.”
Rita slowly nodded. He wasn’t sure, but Chem thought he saw her demeanor darken before his eyes.
“Keep working,” she said. “You can do this.”
Chem felt his cheeks get warm. She was never one for affirming words. “Thanks.”
“I’ll be back. Maybe I can help. But I need something first.” She looked down at her feet and then back at the chemist. “Do you have anything that can eat through steel?”
“Steel?”
Rita nodded.
“Yeah, I guess. I was working on something last year. A little mixture in case Elijah, well, you know, lost control. He doesn’t know about it. So keep it between us.” Chem sifted through a shelf filled with beakers and vials. Each of them labeled with a code he had developed to keep his potions safe from prying eyes. After Elijah had almost killed them all on Mount Washington, Chem thought it best to have a backup plan. He had experimented with a derivative of hydrofluoric acid that would slow the metal beast down, if not corrode him altogether. Sliding the sealed tube into a Ziploc bag and then another, he handed it over to Rita.
