Then the world shook.
A single explosion that shook the very building as it undoubtedly vaporized the front doors as it had been intended to.
A number of vampire guards spilled out into the hallway in front of us and froze in their tracks as soon as they saw us. Cassie, the ever-efficient killing machine she was, opened fire first. The assault rifles were automatics, throwing out dozens of rounds with each touch of the trigger. But Cassie had a control over weapons like no other. One by one she touched off a single round from the guns. One round for each guard. One round for each head. One shot, one kill, as each head exploded in a cloud of red. Watching it firsthand was breathtaking to say the least.
Not to mention frightening as all hell.
Floaty shimmered into existence above Cassie’s head. Its guns whirred to life and sent a rain of hellfire down the hallway behind her to cut down a small group of guards that were moving in to flank us.
The time to be impressed by the kid’s marksmanship was over. Darcy and I both raised our guns and began to fire on the targets that remained as we all began to slowly make our way towards our goal.
With the comms in the glasses we could hear every word as Ren explained to the feds that we were looking for missing cats and that we ended up here, then the place fell under siege by a terrorist group and we needed help. Every single word she told them was true, from a certain point of view anyway. Slight details like the cats not really missing, and the fact that WE were the terrorists weren’t things they needed to know about.
Around the next corner, the disgustingly familiar skeletal smile stepped out to greet us. No one needed to be coaxed or ordered to open fire. All three of us took aim and dumped enough ammo into the Immortal to grease the hallway with his tissues. Nothing larger than a grain of sand was left of him when we were done. Nothing except the core. The putrid black pea stood out against the gore. Easily found and split, we actually slowed to take the time to separate the halves of its core into tiny containers.
One by one we cleared the halls and waded through the sea of bodies step by step. The kill count had already gotten well above what I had expected. So I was slightly shocked to be honest, when we arrived at the appointed room . . .
and found Jacob, Doc, Vixen and her Arachnataur still there.
Chapter 28
We had exhausted our assault rifle ammo on the way in, so it was a quick switch to sidearms to take out the handful of guards directly protecting Jacob and the others inside that room.
Vixen growled at me once, then began to bark out orders into the radio in her hand. Doc ordered the Arachnataur to attack. And Jacob, smiled. The evil grin. The smirk. That smug look he had that made me want to tear his face off with my bare hands.
No speeches, no gloating, no monologs. He dies! NOW!
I activated the obsidian swords and charged Jacob.
The arachnataur was barreling down on me from the side, only to be knocked out of the way by a blur of blood-red armor.
“I got ugly!” Darcy screamed out as she began to pummel the monster.
I was three feet away from cutting distance of Jacob’s throat when the chair came flying at me from out of nowhere. Spinning in mid-stride, I cleaved the chair and jumped it like a hurdle, only to come face to face with a filing cabinet.
The metal slammed into my face. My shields denting a perfect imprint of my face into the metal as it hit me.
What the hell? Who keeps throwing furniture?
I tossed off the cabinet and saw Cassie had reached Jacob. She was only an arm’s length away as she began to swing her blades. Jacob stood his ground. Glancing at her. Then his grin grew even more wicked.
His eyes darted off to the side then back at Cassie. An instant later a large vase came flying in from the direction he had glanced, to shatter against her turned shoulder. She had seen it coming and turned into the attack. It cost her the attack, but saved her from further injury.
Another glance from Jacob sent her flying across the room.
FUCK! I forgot he’s a telekinetic psionic too! He can move things just by thinking about them!
Office furniture and supplies suddenly took flight. I was on my feet, using both swords to hack and slash. Fighting for my life. Paperclips careened against my shields like bullets. Staplers bombarded me like missiles. Lamps, pens, disks, rulers, printers, calculators all became deadly projectiles determined to take off my head.
The overwhelming onslaught of office supplies suddenly had me thinking evil thoughts about ever taking a desk job again. Of course that’s when the first desk attacked. I angled my shields, making the shieldblade large enough to slice through the desk well before it hit me.
A half of breath later the second desk was upon me. But I had taken a glance around. Jacob loved every second of assaulting me with office wears. Doc was cowering behind Vixen who was still barking orders into the radio in her hand. And then there was the Arachnataur.
In the instant I had to glance over, Darcy and Cassie launched a joint attack on the monstrous man-spider. The attack left the creature missing a leg and two arms. Knowing they were holding their own gave me a newfound inner strength.
I glared at Jacob as my shields shattered the second desk to splinters. He glanced off to the side and back at me. An instant later the sculpture followed. It hit me before I could react, but it had betrayed his weakness.
Twice more I watched to be sure. He glanced away, then an object from where he was looking came towards me. Once I was positive that was the pattern, I shifted my attack.
On my feet and moving, I watched his eyes. Wherever he glanced, I strengthened and sharpened my shields to destroy whatever he threw at me.
His calm began to waiver the moment he noticed his attacks weren’t even putting me off balance anymore. Between incoming objects, I launched myself with my shields.
I slammed him against the wall. My sword digging deep into his shoulder, pinning him in place.
He screamed in pain and rage.
I drew back with my other blade. Forcing it towards his heart with all my strength. It was finally going to be over. I was finally going to kill Jacob.
My sword closed the distance between us in less than a blink, fueled by my rage, and my shields, and the cybernetics.
It came crashing down.
The blade sharp enough to cut through other metal like butter. The obsidian blade given to me by Yuric.
I shoved it towards Jacob. Determined to force it through his black, cold heart.
The blade would cut true.
That is, it would have . . . if it had ever reached him.
Less than an inch from his chest, the blade connected with an invisible force. A wall. A barrier between us that suddenly appeared.
He glanced off to the side. My eyes followed his.
Vixen stood there. Arms out. Hands open. Eyes closed in painful concentration. And for a reason I could never fully understand, I could see it. I could see her shields. She placed her shields between us all. Protecting Jacob, Doc, herself, and even the broken arachnataur from us.
Shit, never thought of her doing that!
I was caught off-guard. It was the opening Jacob needed. The sword was torn from my grasp by a force too powerful to be fought against.
A wall of air pummeled down on top of me, forcing me to my knees. Jacob’s eyes burned and bled through adding his vampirism to his psionics. One look and I saw Cassie and Darcy fighting against invisible forces of their own as Jacob pinned us all to the floor.
Doc crossed the room. He reached up and unceremoniously tore my sword out of Jacob’s shoulder, releasing him from the wall to stand and gloat over me. His concentration had wavered the instant the sword left his body. It was enough to allow the others to gain enough ground to be kneeling again, but we were still stuck in place by Jacob’s telekinesis, and Vixen’s shields as well.
“Rip out this little FUCK’S mind for good this time!” Jacob ordered through clenched teeth.
“I must say, you have been quite a pain in the ass my boy. But that ends now.” Doc stretched his hands out to my head, and I felt those familiar searing hot needles start to work into my brain again.
Chapter 29
We were trapped.
A final fight, and we had lost.
Doc worked his magic, forcing his psionics inside my head to scramble my brain, permanently. There was nothing for me to do but scream in pain as he erased my memories, one by one.
In the back of the room I saw a hidden door open. A dozen fully armed guards poured into the room like a flood. Following them in, was yet another arachnataur that was at least half again as large as the one crushing the life out of Darcy.
The sounds of gunfire and an ongoing battle in the rooms outside crushed my hopes of reinforcements of our own arriving. We were fully outnumbered and outgunned.
The private line clicked in my comm followed by a heavily accented feminine voice that brought me panic, terror, and hope all at the same time. “You want miracle now?”
“Y-y-yes,” I managed to croak out through the pain.
“What? Did you say something?” Doc asked me, mistakenly thinking I was talking to him.
“Powerful you are, but not a god yes? Help you need.” Meiying’s voice purred in my ear.
“Yesss,” I growled as the needles in my brain twisted further in.
“I am stronger. Admit this and miracle you shall have.”
The pain kept me from focusing on any one thing for long. And at first I thought it was a trick of my mind. But I had sworn I had seen a shimmer.
Mustering up the strength I could, I flexed and opened a shield-bubble. Inside the glowing violet world only I could see, stood a ghost. She must have known what I had done, because standing there, behind Doc, Meiying smiled down at me and gave me a single elegant wave of her hand.
My miracle had arrived. My violet world grew brighter, and glowed with a new intensity. Then with all honesty, I spoke the words that changed our lives forever.
“I admit, I’m weaker than you are. You are stronger. I am nothing against your powers.”
* * *
Doc never let up his assault on my mind to laugh. “Of course you are weaker than I am! What could you possibly hav– AAAARRRGGHHHH!!!!”
To the unknowing observer, Doc simply arched his back in pain. Like a sudden attack. A spasm.
But I could see it all. I could see the Executioner Class Officer literally reach through past the shielding provided by Vixen and inside his chest to squeeze his heart, forcing his body into having a heart attack.
Cassie reared up and threw her head back against the pain of the shields and kinetics pressing against her, and then she screamed, the words filled with pain as the orders from her lips filled the room. “FLOATY!! EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: PLASMA BARRAGE HOOKER ONE!!!”
The flying robot suddenly appeared above the girl and turned. Both guns opening fire. Raining down round after round of pulse-gun plasma onto my other lesser half.
I had accidentally been shot with a pulse-gun before. And I knew full well that the plasma would go right through my shields. Vixen was just like I was. The plasma ignored her shields to slam into her body. A single round would keep her down for hours, and she was hit over a dozen times before her body bounced off the floor.
With her out of the picture, several things happened at once.
Without Vixen to help keep us in place, Jacob couldn’t hold us all down. Cassie was the first up, drawing her blades and wading her way into the dozen new guards that had filled the room.
It was a ballet of carnage and death as the child danced her way through the men, dismembering, severing, beheading, slicing and dicing. Like the Tasmanian Devil on speed with a Ginsu in each hand, she hacked her way through the armored men, slaughtering each of them in ways that would have made my stomach turn if it ever had a chance to catch up to what my eyes were seeing.
Darcy was not to be outdone herself. Both of her arms shot up from her waist. The force of blunt impact was enough to not only shatter the arachnataur’s elbow, but to rip off the limb entirely. Her right hand shot out and around the right side of the monster’s head, then she rotated her arm, yanking it back and trapping the head of the beast between her arm and body. One single bone shattering twist later and she tore the head clean off of the ancient creature.
I had seen them both out of the corner of my eye as I moved into action myself. Meiying was slowly giving Doc a life ending heart attack, but I didn’t want to risk him getting away at all.
Tyluminium poured from my fist as I raised my arm. Jacob gasped at the sight of the knuckle blades as they melded into the wicked sword jutting from my hand. I brought the arm straight up, slicing Doc from crotch to collar. Jacob switched his focus in an attempt to stop my arm with the sword.
I spun with his pull. My blade cut clean and true on the way back. A single line. Straight. One straight, single line. Meiying stepped back as my sword finished its cut right through the center of Doc’s neck. His head began to fall even before his body crashed to the floor in the opposite direction.
That’s still better than he deserves.
Jacob used his psionics to pull my sword down and I let him. I rolled with the pull. Let his power turn me so I could focus on something else.
The tyluminium blade began to cut into the floor so I retracted it as my spin brought me closer. It was then that Jacob finally began to figure out what I was doing.
He stopped pulling me, but I had already turned too much. Even if I fought against it, my body was past the point of NOT hitting him. We were too close. Just like I had wanted.
A part of my mind had planned that moment ever since the first time I took over as Kieran. The one thing. What to say to the man that killed her when I finally found him and held his life in my hands. I had thought it would be something cool. Like a movie one-liner. Something everyone would remember long after the story had faded. A catch phrase that would identify me for generations to come.
Something really cool.
Something profound.
Something important.
But right then. Looking into the eyes of the asshole that had repeatedly almost killed me, and had made my life a living hell. I was going to kill him, and we both knew it.
Even as my left hand glowed with the manifested powers as I concentrated every ounce of my shields into that one single hit. I poured more power than I had ever used, more power than I had ever known I even had, the kind of power that the original Kieran had used to flatten a chunk of Prague years before. The untapped reserve of power inside me that scared the council, made them afraid enough to send their assassin of assassins to me.
And suddenly I fully realized right then that, I was no longer Kevin. Was no longer that overweight, friendless, and lonely man without a family.
It was Jacob.
All I was, all I had become was because of him.
Because of him I became Kieran. Because of him, I found a strength to carry on. He never intended it to happen, but because of him. . . .
Because of him, I found a new life. A life full of love. A life full of friends. For the first time in MY entire life I had a real family. I had a home. I belonged.
Because of what he is, what he had done, he had made me. Because he was evil, I became good. Because he took life, I found life. He destroyed love, and I found it.
It was Jacob. For the past months, he was the driving force that led me to becoming more than I had ever been before. Because of him, I had a purpose, a reason.
So in that one moment. The one last defining moment. That once chance I had.
The only moment I would ever have in my life to sum up all the terror and pain and suffering. Th
at chance I had to try to make the monster behind those eyes see the evil of his way. The last chance I had to speak the words of revenge for all the families of the loved ones he had killed.
I spoke the only words that truly meant anything to me right then. . . .
“Thank you.”
He glared at me with confusion. My fist slammed into his chest, forcing the shield-bomb inside him.
All those months, all those deaths, the fights, the nightmares, the heartaches. . . .
It was over. It was all over.
I leaned in close enough to kiss him. Looked into his confused eyes. Saw the monster inside.
And I smiled.
“Thank you. . . . Now, FUCK OFF!!!” I screamed in his face.
The shield-bomb exploded inside his chest.
* * *
We stood there watching Jacob’s remains drip and scatter. The blast had obliterated all but the upper right half of his head. The rest of him was a cloud of red that floated in the wind from the central heating unit until it gathered enough on a surface to start to drip down.
Doc was cleaved and beheaded, and the REAL Jacob had been blown to atoms. At long last the nightmare was ending.
“Fuck!” Darcy cursed and dashed towards the back of the room.
We had all been too occupied with Jacob’s death to see the other arachnataur make off out the back with Vixen. As we crossed the room, Tanaka and the others finally showed up with several Feds in tow.
No one questioned the carnage as we all rushed down the secret stairs hidden behind the room. Hundreds of stairs spiraled down and down, deep inside the mountain.
It almost felt like we had been descending the stairs long enough to start counting the different levels of hell before they spilled out into a cavern. It was well lit, and had room enough to hold our entire group dozens of times over.
But there was no sign. No sign of my evil twin. No evidence of the hideous arachnataur. The floor was covered in a layer of dust untouched by years of neglect.
Immortal Death (Kieran Grey Psionic Hunter Book 3) Page 27
