The look in her eyes filled Andre with a sense of dread. She looked down at the floor, afraid he would see the truth in her eyes.
“What is it?” he asked. “Where's he at?”
She glanced at the men at the end of the bar, then toward the door, like she wanted to look anywhere but at Andre. Finally, she mumbled her answer.
“Bobby the Bull has him.”
Andre stumbled over her words, trying to make sense of the statement. “What do you mean, 'has him?'”
Cleo let out a sigh. “Bobby came around looking for you. I didn't tell him anything, kid. I swear. But news got around that you got pinched by the Alliance. You still owed him, so he tried to collect on Mickey. Made the kid work for him to pay off your debt.”
Andre shook his head, still confused, still denying what he was hearing. “Work for him? I mean, Mickey can barely get around on his own two feet. How did he expect him to collect debts?”
Cleo looked down at the floor again, a darkness falling over her face. “He wasn't collecting money, kid. Bobby put him on the street.”
Andre took a step back, then leaned forward and asked through gritted teeth, “What the hell do you mean 'put him on the street.'”
Cleo shook her head, her voice escaping her as she answered, “Kid... don't make me say it. You know exactly what that means.”
Andre's stomach lurched. He had thought, out of all of them, that Mickey had escaped the scars of that night. But it turned out, Mickey's scars might be the deepest.
“Where is he, Cleo?” Andre growled. “Where's Bobby the Bull?”
“Don't do it, kid. Please. Just leave. Leave this place forever. That man has done enough damage taking over the neighborhood. Don't let him damage you too.”
“Cleo...”
She closed her eyes and nodded her head, knowing there was no way of talking him out of it. “He's working out of the old slaughterhouse, down on Oxford Avenue. But I'm warning you, he's upped his game. He controls a lot more since you left. He took out some heavy hitters. Got himself some new toys.”
Andre barely heard her warning through the throbbing pulse in his ears. His heart felt like it was pumping hi-octane fuel. His steps moved faster and faster until he was in a full sprint, bursting down the sidewalk at superhuman speed. He crossed the seventeen blocks in less than a minute, coming to a stop in front of the abandoned slaughterhouse.
It was obvious that Bobby had done some restoration of his own, but the building was still dilapidated on the outside. He strode straight up to the guard standing near the rusted gate.
“You got an appointment?”
Andre punched him so hard that his face caved in. The man's body dropped to the ground, twitching as the last of his nerves were overwhelmed with pain. He died seconds later.
Andre continued across the parking lot of the factory, toward the main entrance, when two more men came running out of the doorway toward him. They were yelling something, trying to be intimidating, but Andre couldn't hear them. As soon as the first one got close enough, Andre reeled back his fist, and lunged toward the man. His hand sunk deep into the man's chest, then ripped backward, yanking the man's heart out of his rib cage. The other man stopped dead in his tracks, then back stepped as Andre moved toward him, dropping the still-beating heart onto the ground next to the body. Andre grabbed the man's neck with his bloody hand and squeezed. He felt a popping sensation as the man's larynx broke open like an egg.
Andre had never let loose like that before, never unleashed his strength in such an unabashed demonstration of violence. He had delivered a broken leg here, or a fractured rib there, but nothing so bloody. He was dealing death instantaneously, using his increased strength to break bodies in ways he had never dreamed of. The fury and adrenaline mixed into a potent fuel for his super power.
Five more men fell to his violent rage on the way upstairs, all of them gruesomely eviscerated in the quickest way possible. By the time he threw open the doors to Bobby the Bull's office, Andre was dripping with blood and entrails.
“What the hell is that?” Bobby asked, spitting his sandwich out of his mouth as Andre strode across the room toward him.
Andre was so laser-focused on his goal that it prevented him from noticing Bobby's stone-skinned bodyguard, Pavement, step out from the side. A rock-hard fist slammed into the side of his head like a wrecking-ball, throwing him across the room. He slammed into the far wall and fell onto the floor. As much pain as he felt, he still scrambled to his feet.
“Andre?” Bobby asked as he squinted his eyes. “Is that you? What the hell is wrong with you? Is that your blood?”
Before Andre could react, the walkie-talkie on Bobby's desk squawked with the sounds of his other henchmen finding Andre's path of destruction. Bobby picked it up and listened to it for a moment before his eyes grew large with the realization of what was happening.
“What the hell have you done, boy?”
“Where is he?” Andre growled, his voice gurgling with phlegm. “Where's Mickey?”
Bobby glanced at Pavement, then back at Andre with a grin stretching across his face. He grabbed a napkin off the table and wiped off his mouth, then began polishing his bull horns as he stood up from his desk.
“Is that what this is about? You come here and you murder my men for what? That kid? How are you even here, Andre? I thought you were rotting away in The Pit?”
“Where is he!?” Andre screamed the question, saliva and blood flinging from his lips.
Pavement stepped closer, readying himself for Andre's increased intensity. Bobby held out his hand to soothe the giant man. He very calmly reached over to a device on his desk that Andre hadn't noticed. It looked mechanical, with a glowing blue light that pulsed back and forth along the side. Bobby slid his hand inside and lifted it like some kind of arm cannon. When he did, the device sealed around his arm and whined like it was charging up.
“I'll answer your question, Andre. I will. But first, you need to understand a few things. See... a lot has changed since you disappeared.”
Andre stood up straight, clenching his fists at his sides, but Bobby raised the cannon, pointing it directly at him.
“Ah, ah, ah. Let's not do anything you'll regret,” Bobby said, a small ball of ice forming in the center of the cannon's barrel. “Do you recognize this, Andre? Are you familiar with the supervillain Médico Gelo?”
Andre knew the name. He controlled the criminal underworld on the western waterfront. And as soon as Bobby said the name, Andre knew what the device on his arm was. Médico Gelo didn't possess a super power, but the freeze cannon he developed helped him become one of the more notorious supervillains in Patriot City.
“I'm not interested in your toys, Bobby. Give me my friend.”
Bobby grinned ear-to-ear. “'Give you your friend?' Andre... do you really think it's going to be that easy?”
“It can be, Bobby. Give me Mickey, and I walk out of here without anyone else getting hurt.”
Pavement laughed and Bobby joined in.
“See, Andre, the problem here is you walked into a situation you know nothing about. That was your mistake. Because not only did your friend take on the responsibility of paying back your loan... or was it your other friend's loan? How you all got into this mess doesn't really matter. What matters is Mickey went and did something dumb. Do you know what he did, Andre?”
Andre stared back at Bobby.
“No?” Bobby asked. “Tsk, tsk. Well, it would be easier for me to show you. Come on.”
Bobby nonchalantly waved his free hand and walked into an adjoining room. Pavement stood firm, waiting for Andre to follow his boss. When Andre moved, Pavement followed close behind.
They entered into another room, this one more of a trophy room for the minor league supervillain. He had paintings on the walls from art heists he hadn't pulled off himself. There were suits of medieval armor and tablets from ancient civilizations. All of it worth more than Andre could imagine. But Bobby continued
past all of this, toward the back of the room.
“Your friend wasn't very bright, Andre. He knew I had Médico Gelo eliminated. He knew I had procured his freeze cannon. He knew these things, and yet he still walked into my office and pulled a knife on me. Can you imagine?”
Bobby walked up to a freezer door in the back of the room and unlatched the lock. When the door opened, Andre saw what Bobby had brought him into the room to see. Standing in the subzero room was Mickey, frozen in a block of ice, one arm outstretched in front of him, holding a knife.
“Lucky for him, I like how this piece turned out. The look in his eyes. That mix of desperation and hope. The difference between freedom and imprisonment, separated by a split second. It really does make you feel the sweet desperation someone like him feels... doesn't it?” Bobby turned around and saw the look on Andre's face as he said, “Oh dear. I suppose this particular piece of art makes us feel very different things, doesn't it?”
Both Pavement and Bobby laughed again, but all Andre heard was the pounding of his super-powered heart in his ears. It thrust him forward, his arms outstretched, ready to tear Bobby in half, but his lunge was cut short by a rock-skinned hand wrapping around his neck. Pavement yanked him backward, holding him in the air a foot off the ground.
“See? That's where you messed up again. Rushing into things without using your head. That's why we made a good team, Andre. I use my brain. You use your brawn. We really got things done, you and I. I don't suppose there's any chance of reconciliation.”
Andre reached behind his back and wrapped his fingers around the handle of the guard's pistol he had stuffed in his belt. He yanked out the gun and pointed it at Bobby. The bull-headed man raised the freeze cannon as he did, but Andre's arm was fueled by adrenalin and his own super-powered speed. His finger twitched as soon as the barrel was pointed at Bobby's head, and he pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun popped in his ears and the side of Bobby's face exploded. Pavement screamed and slammed Andre into the floor as hard as he could. The wood actually broke open, and Andre could see the room below. He remained limp, knowing that the strike would have most likely killed any normal person. When the stone-skinned man stomped across the room to check on his boss, Andre pulled himself out of the broken floorboards.
Pavement was lifting his boss upright and Andre saw gray matter fall from the open skull. Bobby the Bull was dead. There was no doubt about it. Pavement roared into the air, the sound echoing as if it came from deep within a cavern. His eyes flared back toward Andre, who was scrambling for his gun. The stone man rose to his feet, still roaring with anger, and stomped toward Andre. Andre fired at him, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off his body. As soon as he was within arm's reach, Pavement backhanded the gun out of Andre's grip, then punched him in the chest. Andre left his breath where he was standing as his body was rocketed across the room. He slammed into the far wall and tried to suck in air. Pavement continued to stomp across the room, nowhere near done with him. When Andre managed to inhale a lungful of air, he moved, racing right at Pavement. When the giant man swung a fist at Andre, he ducked and slid between the stone man's legs. When he came out the other side, he jumped to his feet and continued running, back toward Bobby the Bull.
Pavement spun around, but his stone figure, while making him nearly invulnerable, also made him slow. He lurched forward, toward Andre and his boss's corpse. Andre grabbed onto the freeze cannon, knowing it might be his only chance at stopping the stone bodyguard, but the cannon was still firmly connected to Bobby's arm. He scanned the outside of the device, but it was covered in knobs and buttons and switches. He had no time to decipher which one might unlatch the weapon.
Pavement continued his stride toward him, only feet away as his hands stretched outward, toward Andre's doom. Andre looked down at his ex-employer's corpse, dug his fingers into the flesh of the bull-man's shoulder, and tore the entire limb free. The spray of blood covered his face as he rolled away, holding the appendage like a club. Pavement, horrified by the further desecration of the corpse, lunged forward. Andre took a wild swing, unable to see clearly through the gore that dripped over his eyes, but the weapon struck Pavement in the chest, and when combined with Andre's enhanced strength, the device exploded on impact. A concussive blast of white and blue energy balled into an implosion of freezing air, then hardened into a frozen statue of Pavement, his fist inches from Andre's face.
Andre fell back onto the floor, the frozen man towering over him. The room fell silent for a moment, leaving Andre alone with the aftermath of the battle. He glanced back toward the freezer, then rushed toward his friend. With a forceful yank, he slid the frozen statue across the floor, out into the trophy room. There, the ice dripped onto the floor, ever so slowly. He stared into Mickey's eyes, wanting nothing more than to quicken time, to hurry the clock so that he could see his friend again. Hear his voice. Tell him that everything was going to be okay.
Then he glanced back at Pavement and saw the same dripping happening. It might take hours, but eventually Pavement would thaw too, and there was no way to tell which of them would thaw first. Andre glanced around the room of ancient artifacts until his eyes fell upon a large metal club, covered in spikes. He rose to his feet, approached the weapon, and removed it from its hooks. Even with his super strength, the weapon felt heavy, but when he brought the spiked end down upon Pavement's head, the weight crushed the frozen body into a gory pile of ice cubes that scattered about the room.
Andre glanced back one more time at his friend before he moved toward the door, dragging the spiked club behind him, gripping it in his bloody hands. There was a whole factory full of henchmen that could threaten him and his friend, and there was no way he was going to let that happen. He wouldn't stop until every last one of them was dead. He wouldn't stop until he and Mickey were safe. He took a deep breath, wiped the dripping blood from his eyes, and got to work.
25
HECTOR
As the giant doors of the Grand Citadel opened wide, the sheer gaudiness of the royal family's home was shown to all. Hector felt the disgust boiling over in his stomach. He swallowed it down and kept the pleasant look on his face, his eyes darting around, taking mental notes of everything he saw.
The military aircraft that had transported them to the flying castle in the sky landed without ever exchanging codes or passwords. He could only assume that the ship itself was equipped with clearance that allowed it to bypass any security measures. Another sign of the family's arrogance that made it easy for him to take advantage of.
The Grand Citadel itself was armed with anti-aircraft cannons hidden behind armored doors, so as not to distract from the décor, but Hector could see the coverings that would open in case of an attack. The amount of weapons that lined the exterior could decimate a small army, but posed little threat to two stealthy intruders.
As they stepped through the gigantic entryway, guards on either side stood near control panels that operated the doors. That could have been an issue, but the Grand Citadel was also dotted with open windows to expose the sky that surrounded it. It was obvious that the designer of the castle was much more interested in boisterous decoration than he was in protecting the royal family from intruders, but when the royal family is invincible, their protection falls to the bottom of the list of priorities.
As soon as they entered the greeting chamber, Magda Zharkov floated down a grand set of stairs and landed in front of them. Her crimson-colored hair was pinned up in a headdress, and her silk robes were wrapped tightly around her body, making her appear rigidly bound.
Esmeralda, Hector, and Miguel all bowed down to the wife of the Imperator of the Zharkovian Empire. It was yet another moment that Hector forced himself to hold down the bile in his gut that wanted desperately to be released. She was super-powered, but she wasn't invincible. Even without his sword, he could kill her right then and there. Her neck would snap like any other. But then the room would fill with guards, which would postpone his getaway, and
give one of the super-powered brats that live in the giant monstrosity the time to find him. And without his sword, he would be a puddle of blood before he could blink. No, he had to be smart. He had to be patient. He had to wait for his moment. The combination of he and Emseralda's planning and strategy and intelligence were how mortals would overcome these blasphemous gods.
“I'm so glad you could make the trip in person, Mrs. Majesty,” Magda said, smiling from across the room, guards flanking her on either side. “I'm sorry for the heightened security, and I beg you not to take personal offense to their presence, but in this time of fragile peace, our security teams insist on taking every precaution.”
Hector smiled. They thought these added measures would keep them safe, but it was the exact opposite. The guards would be stretched thin. They would be tired, working extra hours. The paranoia would cause chaos. And he would take advantage of every crack in their armor.
“I thank you for inviting us into your home,” Esmeralda said as she rose to her feet. “It's always been a dream of mine to visit the Grand Citadel of the Zharkovian Empire.”
Hector had always dreamed of it too. Violent, bloody dreams. Dreams that would come true all too soon.
Magda turned and opened her arms wide to present her surroundings. “Well then, I welcome you. Our home was actually built by the late, great Dominus Takahiro Oshiro as a gift to Imperator Konstantin Zharkov as they entered into the Super Power War. It was a sign of his allegiance and the unity between the two men as they began our great Empire.”
“And then you murdered him,” Hector thought to himself. “Your Empire is falling down around you, but please continue to admire the tapestries.”
Magda and her guards led them down a long hall, toward the throne room Hector had seen many times on television, but they stopped short and turned into one of the many doorways along the corridor. The guards motioned for them all to enter, and when they did, Hector saw a long oak table, surrounded by paintings of the family, and a huge chandelier lit by hundreds of candles.
The Super Power Saga (Book 2): Rise of the Supervillains Page 19
