by Robert Lyons
Volume 1 of the Wielders Series
Crimson Judgment
Robert J Lyons
Copyright © 2019 Robert J Lyons
All rights reserved.
Editing and Proofreading by Red Road Editing / Kristina Circelli (www.circelli.info)
Book design by ebooklaunch.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.
I dedicate this book to the real John and Adrianne Kubovics, two extraordinary people in my life who showed me how to make so much out of so little.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Phase 01: Active Camouflage
Phase 02: Cipher Break
Phase 03: Underground Graveyard
Phase 04: Unforeseen Consequences
Phase 05: Predatory Instinct
Phase 06: Claustrophobic Slaughter
Phase 07: Exposed Potential
Phase 08: Aerial Onslaught
Phase 09: Crimson Judgment
Phase 10: Frenzied Emergence
PROLOGUE
Two years in the past…
Rori reached out her hand from the engulfing darkness, but was stopped short by the invisible wall fixed in between her and the young man with a pair of majestic wings sprouting from his back. Sobbing, she ran her nails down the obstruction with a teeth-grinding screech, leaving deep grooves etched in the glass. The irritating sound didn’t permeate the barrier to reach the young angel. He kept his back to Rori as he gazed at the vast globe below.
“Zayde! Why can’t you hear me?!” Rori slammed her clenched fists repeatedly against the obstacle. Her cyan hair ruffled as she tried to rest her forehead on the smooth surface. The pair of curved horns protruding from her brow prevented her from touching the glass.
Rori had nothing else to lose. Singing was the last method she could try. Beating her feathered wings, the female figure drifted a small distance away from the glass wall, deeper into oblivion. She brought her hands up to her chest, crossing her fingers and taking a deep breath.
I’ve lingered aimlessly,
Time has slipped away.
My hands grown numb,
I’m filled with dismay.
Reach out! I’m so close!
I’m your missing piece!
Come back to me, child!
You—my masterpiece!
Broken apart, we’re weak.
Together, our powers interlace!
Soar the skies, search the stars!
Awaken, awaken in my embrace!
The young man named Zayde slowly turned around, staring at the female figure. Rori drew a sharp gasp. He had noticed her once again. Perhaps this would be the day.
“Zayde!” Rori called out fervently. “I’m here!”
Zayde glared at Rori like she was a monster coming to bring havoc into his realm.
In response, Rori recoiled. The rejection felt like a dagger piercing her delicate heart. Tears spilled out of Rori’s eyes as she drew her wings around herself in a protective hug.
“Zayde … why?” Rori wheezed. Each breath she took in became increasingly more painful. “Why don’t you remember me?!”
The young angel’s form slowly disintegrated, leaving the female figure by herself. As she continued to lament, she struck the invisible wall before her fiercely, small fissures forming around where she slammed her fists. Her cyan eyes glowed brightly as she unleashed a bone-rattling roar.
PHASE 01
Active Camouflage
March 17th, 2037. Local Time: 13:45
Underground, inside of the Intel Gathering Facility
United States, State of Montana.
1.
The only light in the room was located in the far left, top corner, emitting an unnerving shade of green. This small chamber that held the prisoner and the three interrogators was specifically fine-tuned to create a hot, moist environment that caused as much distress as possible for the occupant.
The prisoner was secured to a metal chair that was bolted directly to the metal plated floor. Fetters fastened his arms crisscrossed behind him, stretching his limbs in the opposite direction of their normal range of motion. Each end was tied with braided steel cables to a set of winches on both sides of the chair. The smallest amount of movement would activate the high-torque motors to pull the cables tighter.
“You’ve done it—monster,” the eldest of the interrogators spoke up. His voice was gruff as he clenched his yellow teeth. “You’ve lasted up to this point.”
The prisoner did not respond to the comment. He continued to hang his head in silence as the long, drooping hair concealed his face.
The captive appeared to be unconscious, but the senior interrogator knew better than to buy into the act. Too many captives in the past attempted an escape or launched an attack when the interrogators let their guard down. However, the prisoner that was that was going through the information extracting process did not appear to be interested in getting out of the bind, like the hundreds of other subjects in the past.
This detainee seemed indifferent to the hostile environment.
With bulging shoulders, defined arms, and a chest and back shaped as if they were carved out of stone, it was a marvel how a team of humans were able to capture this beastly humanoid. The team that tracked down and captured the target was trained for years for this specific purpose. They belonged to the conglomerate known as HAWK, the specialized organization that protected humanity against threats that were loosely classified as “abnormal.”
The captured subject was suspected of holding vital information. The Intel Gathering Team, specialists assembled from different branches of the HAWK, drew up that presumption based on where the prisoner was caught.
Breaking the spirit of the humanoid consumed all of the team’s creativity and stamina. Hours upon hours of torture methods were performed to wear the prisoner down. The only response the team could get out of the captive was an occasional chuckle.
“Bodt, a word?” the young man with wavy brown hair and a short, full beard asked, stepping away from where he had stood stock-still for the past hour. The senior team member nodded, following the man who requested to talk to him.
“What is it, Holt?”
“This is going nowhere. We need to cut our losses and grind this thing into powder.” Holt looked over his shoulder to glance at the captive. The prisoner’s lack of pained outcries suggested that the thirty-six hours of the most pain-filled torture amounted to nothing more than entertainment for the captive.
“I’m glad you noticed, Holt. I’m so oblivious! Thanks for pointing that out!” Bodt’s profound sarcasm was grinding against Holt like sandpaper.
“Although insulting you is a favorite past time of mine, I was being serious. The other ones were nowhere as clamped up as this one is. This asshole should have broken a long time ago.”
“That’s because this asshole is going to take whatever it knows to the grave—and to be perfectly frank, I’m at a point where I might end this little shit. There has to be others with looser lips that know the same information as him.”
The area the prisoner was contained in was a rectangular-shaped room, nine feet tall, fifteen feet wide, and twenty deep. The concrete cell was buried many stories underground. In short, it was the perfect bomb shelter. There was one reinforced, metal door that separated the area from the rest of the subterranean facility other than the secondary aperture in the wall that was hidden in plain sight. A
guard was situated outside of the room where the information extraction process took place. In the unlikely event that a prisoner escaped from its restraints, there would be assistance within moments.
The Intel Gathering Facility was built to provide the picture-perfect environment to break down any creature’s resolve. The captive, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying it. He embraced the torture like a pleasant exchange with a trusted friend. The exposed, pale skin of the prisoner seemingly glowed under the green light. The clothes that concealed the prisoner’s nakedness were stolen from the last human victim the prisoner cut down before he was detained, and were now discarded on the metal-plated floor was sprayed with a mix of human and monster blood.
To the untrained eye, the prisoner appeared to be human, but the exterior was a façade. The inhuman regenerative abilities were manifesting, as wounds inflicted on the prisoner’s body disappeared after a short amount of time.
The captive lifted his head slightly, the long bangs of hair sliding away to reveal the bottom portion of his face.
Thin lips formed into a twisted, monstrous grin. The upper row of teeth that protruded over the bottom set was comparable to that of a shark’s layered sets of incisors. The Intel Gathering Team collectively stared at the monstrous mouth with disgust.
“…Bodt?” Kuhn, the third member of the Intel Gathering Team, spoke up.
“It can wait, K,” Bodt whispered.
“Just so you understand…” The voice was laden with an accent of foreign origin. This was the very first time the captive spoke since he was brought in. The three men stared at the subject with disbelief. “…There was never a need to be so hostile with me, Mister Bodt.”
Up until that point, the prisoner used laughs to communicate the amusement he experienced in the midst of torture.
“Your ‘interrogation’ tactics lack the vigor to break me. Humans are capable of so much more. If anything, you’ve been going easy on me, haven’t you?”
“Now you’re getting chatty?” Bodt narrowed his eyes.
The creature paused as he pondered what would be the best response to the imposed question. “I had no reason to talk to my prey in the past. Now, I realize there are some topics we could discuss. First, consider the possibility that your team is not inflicting enough pain—”
The prisoner’s head was heaved sideways. Bodt extracted a heavy baton, slamming it across the prisoner’s skull with a sickening crunch. Bodt’s strength was not to be discounted, despite him being significantly older than the other two members of the Intel Gathering Team.
“We’ve studied your species for decades. You can feel pain!” Bodt snarled. “Don’t bullshit me!”
The creature leaned forward, even though his movement was restricted. The braided steel cables tying him down constricted more, crossing his arms tighter behind his back. This movement almost tore both shoulders out of their sockets simultaneously; yet, the prisoner did not exhibit any form of anguish.
“Who would’ve guessed that Mister Bodt could be so narrow-minded? Have you ever thought that humans interpret ‘pain’ oppositely than we do?” The prisoner belted out a hearty laugh, saliva dripping out of his mouth as he spoke. The wound inflicted from the baton fracturing his skull was nearly healed as the flesh and bones were fusing back together.
“What the hell is this thing?” Kuhn murmured through clenched teeth.
The prisoner’s long, black hair wiped back and revealed the rest of his face. The nostrils flared as he caught the scent of his prey. All three men braced at the sight of that spiteful eye staring at them with palpable loathing.
The left eye was the lesser of two evils, as it was whited out entirely. There was no trace of a pupil, or life in it for that matter. It appeared to serve the purpose of simply filling the eye socket.
The right side was the complete opposite.
Like a sea of blood, the entire eye was screeching red with a single, large black void in the middle that provided sight for the monster. Within that void of darkness was a raging fire. Flames violently roiled within the dark whirlpool.
Bodt’s heart skipped a beat.
In that moment, the senior interrogator sensed that the red eyed beast projected a far more dangerous aura than any other in the past. This was the first case in the team’s history where a red eyed monster proved to be absolutely unbreakable.
“Bodt! This thing’s energy reading is sky-rocketing!” Kuhn brought up a device strapped to his forearm. The screen was bordered with a rapidly blinking red frame. “How can this be possible? It should be starved and exhausted, and yet!”
“Ah, my Rutem energy must be finally leaking out.” The prisoner shook his head, seemingly disappointed with himself. “It can’t be helped, but before I get carried away, I will give credit where credit is due. The three of you deprived yourselves of rest to break me down. If anything, you all did a splendid job of getting my attention.”
“Your attention?!” Holt thundered.
The prisoner cracked a toothy grin. The machines that immobilized his arms began to hum with greater volume. An unexpected counterforce was overcoming the winches. The insistent clicking was an indication that the gears were starting to slip.
“Yes, but the time has come to stop this game.” The monster leaned forward even more. “The part where you thought you were ever in control of me.”
The senior team member clenched his teeth, readying his baton for another strike. “I’ll bring in someone that will definitely get you talking.”
The creature smiled, its red eye almost glowing.
“Am I worthy to have Jason summoned? The last Wielder in existence? To remove him from the battlefield for my sake…”
The red eyed beast took a deep breath, savoring the moment.
“…You have to be really desperate!”
The integration officer bit his tongue. The monster had called Bodt’s bluff by name.
“I’ve said it a thousand times for a day and a half! Russia! Village full of corpses! What were you damn Chromas doing in those woods?!” Bodt boomed.
The previously quiet environment was now in tumult. The prisoner laughed with such volume that Holt and Kuhn both took a step back, confused by this humanoid’s erratic behavior.
“Russia? So that was the land I was in?” the captive pondered.
“Answer the fucking question!” Bodt shouted, drawing his sidearm and pointing it at the prisoner’s head.
“Why should I have to tell that tale?” The detainee smiled with confidence, his gaze veering away from Bodt toward the narrow window situated next to the heavy door. “They were there with me too.”
• • •
“How much longer is the shithead going to drag this out?” The older HAWK member pulling guard duty rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes, slumping over in his chair. The two personnel outside of Intel Gathering Room No. 2 were waiting for their long shift to end. The younger man stood up to press his face against the narrow window located next to the metal door. He keenly observed the three men of the Intel Gathering Team carry on with their work.
“Fascinated, Domingo? Those colored-eyed monsters are truly the children of the devil,” the older guard verbally prodded his junior.
“‘Fascinated’ is not the word for it, Simmons.” Domingo sighed, still in utter disbelief of what he was witnessing. “They’ve been trying to break this thing for thirty-six hours. What’s taking so long? The red-eyed ones break in no time with Bodt on duty.”
“A lot of factors go into their mental fortitude, but their resilience mostly depends on what they know.” Simmons sighed. “The monsters do have resolve, given they have something to hide.”
“Oh, shit.” Domingo stared down at a monitor, glancing at the steadily rising number that mirrored the results on Kuhn’s wrist-mounted computer. “How much more strength does that damn thing have—?”
A chill ran up Domingo’s spine. The red eye’s leer darted away from Bodt and locked on to him. Takin
g a deep breath, Domingo pushed away from the wall.
“What is it?” Simmons stood up, grabbing for his sidearm. He rushed next to Domingo, staring through the window. “Did something happen?”
“No! Nothing happened! That Chroma just looked right at me—that’s all.”
“Eh? A Chroma spooked you? Come on, Domingo! Get a grip.” Simmons placed the sidearm back into his thigh holster. Before he turned away, Simmons glanced once more at the prisoner.
I’ll admit—it can be unnerving when those things stare at you, Simmons thought. What goes on in those heads—wait!
The guard realized the truth. The Chroma was not staring at Domingo or him. No, the monster’s gaze reached out farther behind them. Slowly, Simmons turned around.
Standing in the doorway leading to the hallway were three silhouettes. They were the same species of humanoid as the prisoner. Their unannounced arrival made it seem as though they had materialized out of thin air.
“Domingo,” Simmons whispered without looking away from the newfound threat. “We’re fucked.”
Domingo reached for his pistol. “How the hell did they get in here without their energy signatures being detected?”
Given this particular scenario, there was no possible way the humans could defeat the Chroma. There were only two options left to choose from - go out fighting, or be slaughtered like screaming swine in a butcher house.
“Got my back?” Simmons smiled bitterly.
“Forget your back. We’ll be plenty busy in the front.” Domingo nodded, turning on heel and pointing his gun in the direction of the incoming danger. Each one of the silhouettes possessed a glowing white left eye and a royal purple right eye. The three creatures grinned with murderous intent as they leaned forward. The pistols were fired off in quick succession.
• • •
“What the hell was that?!” Holt yelled as he heard the muffled gunshots coming from the other room. Bodt clenched his teeth, spying out the blood splatter on the narrow window next to the metal door. He already knew what happened, but couldn’t understand how an assault on the facility transpired without a single alarm being tripped.
