Firedrake - Volume 1

by T. Mike McCurley

  “Yup,” Drake said with a shrug. “She usually is when it comes to me.”

  “Good enough,” Calder said, rising from his chair. He stretched, joints cracking loudly in the confining hall. “Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to be a problem.”

  “Who the hell is this?” Manslaughter demanded. “My deal was with you!”

  “Yeah? Well, you get the bonus plan, kid,” Drake told her. He looked back at Calder, opening his mouth to speak, but the brown-haired booster beat him to the punch.

  “I’m sorry about what happened back there in the lab,” he said. “I just saw you going after Hart and, well, I figured -”

  “No hard feelings,” Drake said, cutting him off. “I’ve been hit before, and I figure I will again.”

  “With good reason, too,” Manslaughter chimed in. She smiled sweetly in response to the frosty glare Drake shot her way.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Calder said, directing his comment to the Marine. “Could you remove her restraints?”

  The man’s tanned face looked up from his screen, eyes tracking up and down the length of Calder’s body. The corner of his mouth turned up and he spoke through gritted teeth, as though even speaking to Calder was something to be avoided.

  “Why don’t you just take it off of her? Can’t be any harder than tearing off a man’s arm, and we both know you’ve done that before.”

  The comment drew a sharp intake of breath from Drake, who wheeled suddenly to tower over the Marine. To his credit, the man showed no visible signs of fear. Calder reached out a hand to restrain the reptilian booster.

  “You think I don’t remember?” he asked in a soft voice. “That I have somehow forgotten the lives I destroyed? Think again. I see them all the time. Every time I close my eyes. Every time I think about my past. Every day I stay alive I see their faces.”

  “Good,” the Marine said with a satisfied smile. “I hope you do. I hope you see them every second ‘til you‘re rotting in Hell.”

  “Unlock the cuffs,” Drake ordered, interrupting the scene before it could progress. He took a half-step sideways, insinuating his enormous form between the two men. He flared out his wings and glared down at the uniformed Marine for a second. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. One other thing,” he added suddenly, his expression morphing to a smile.

  “What’s that, sir?” asked the Marine, looking up into the baleful yellow eyes of the booster.

  “If you don’t drop the attitude, I’ll break your spine and leave you here to die,” Drake said calmly. To emphasize his words, he gripped the computer monitor in one massive hand and crushed it with ease. Sparks spat from within his grasp as glass showered to the floor.

  “You know who this asshole is?” the man asked, eyes wide at the sight of the destroyed equipment. Drake nodded slowly, letting the tips of his teeth show as he did so.

  “All too well. Do you know who I am? ‘Cause as far as I can tell, I’m the one in charge here. Not you, slick. I’m running this little show and I’m telling you to do your damned job or I’ll do it for you - and that‘s gonna leave a mark, you know?”

  He reached for the man’s belt with the same hand he had used to crush the monitor. There was no sign of pain on Drake‘s inhuman face despite the fact that smoke continued to trail from the scales in thin gray plumes. The Marine blanched slightly and grabbed for the ring of keys that hung forward of his left hip. They jangled noisily as his hands trembled, but a moment later he selected a long thin key which he applied to the locks securing Manslaughter. The red LED blinked off and the Marine inserted the key into the lock. A loud click followed, and the restraints snapped open. Manslaughter held her arms before her and rubbed briskly at them as Drake handed the restraint set in its entirety to the Marine.

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” he said in a too-sweet tone of voice. He glanced down to where the man’s name was embroidered on a patch above the left breast of his digital camouflage uniform blouse. “I’m gonna remember you, Liles,” he promised. The look which accompanied the words was not friendly.

  Without waiting for acknowledgment from the Marine, Drake turned on his heel and gripped Manslaughter by the arm once more. Along with Calder, they walked away from the desk and out of the front door.

  “You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Calder said when they had stepped into the outside air. Drake was reveling in the feel of sunlight after being in the chill atmosphere of the underground installation for so long. He flared his wings again, letting them absorb the heat even as he flapped a hand dismissively toward the man in the leather jacket.

  “Ain’t no thing,” he said. “Can’t say I know what you feel, but I’ve been on the end of that attitude before. It ain’t right, and it sure as hell don’t fly with me.”

  “I’m used to it,” Calder said. He shrugged wide shoulders, shifting the fabric of his jacket, and tucked his hands into the pockets of the garment.

  “I figured as much. Still, this is my gig, and I ain’t gonna put up with him being a dumbass.”

  Calder nodded his thanks. “So where exactly are we going, anyway?” he asked.

  “Never-Never Land,” Manslaughter said in a superior tone, as though knowing the answer made her somehow better than the pair with which she traveled.

  “Gidget here’s gonna take us to her daddy’s house,” Drake explained, glossing over the woman’s tone with his own slow drawl.

  “Teleporter?” Calder wondered aloud, raising an eyebrow.

  “Better,” Manslaughter said. Her eyes narrowed and she raised her arms to the sky. She took a half-step out to her left, spreading her weight equally on both legs, and threw back her head. A low, guttural growling tone rattled from her throat and after a moment it became clear that she was uttering some form of language, though neither Drake nor Calder could identify it. The words took on a rhythm of their own after a few seconds, and Manslaughter’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. Her upper body started to sway back and forth as she chanted. Drake shivered as the air took on a palpable chill and seemed to thicken around them. He tasted the scent of ozone on the air, blended with something he could not recognize but that was somehow familiar.

  Without warning, their surroundings suddenly seemed to rush in at them. Objects that were a moment before hundreds of yards distant crashed in toward them at breakneck speed and then vanished as they were surrounded by blackness. Fearing the woman had betrayed him, Drake reached a hand for the butt of one of his pistols. Before his grip could close, the world became a psychedelic swirl of color and he felt soft carpet beneath his feet.

  “Welcome!” boomed a deep bass voice. The sound seemed to echo forever. Drake spun, half-looking for the source even as he fought to take in his new surroundings.

  The room was enormous. Drake judged it at easily one hundred feet to a side, laid out in a simple square design. They had landed in the center of the room. The walls of the room were hung with incredible tapestries and what appeared to be original oil paintings by some of the world’s masters. In each corner was a suit of armor standing at rigid attention, each one’s mailed gloves clutching a different weapon. Overhead, suspended from a ceiling fully forty feet above them, was a truly massive crystal chandelier. Tiny beams of light shot from recesses in the ceiling, each trained upon the crystals that hung from that chandelier. The effect was a transformation of the lights into random sparks of varied color. They stood on a vast carpet of scarlet that covered the entire floor, giving the impression that they were in a pool of blood. It was not an impression Drake appreciated.

  “This has got a sort of surreal feeling to it. It’s like the old anti-drug movies they showed you back in school, you know?” Calder asked, pitching his voice low. “'Reefer Madness', 'Cocaine Fiends', stuff like that.”

  “I didn’t go to school, slick,” Drake muttered in response. He tapped a claw against his plated chest. “Didn’t exactly meet the dress code.”

  “Who have you brought to my home, little one?” asked
the voice. It had the volume of a team of bulldozers working in unison, and Drake gritted his teeth in response to the sharp pain it generated in his ears.

  “Francis Drake, Office of Metahuman Affairs,” he announced, nearly shouting the words in hopes that they would be heard. “Any chance we could get you to come talk face to face?”

  “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” urged the voice, though this time it was quiet and near to hand. Drake spun to take in the image of a man dressed in tan corduroy trousers and a white silk shirt. He was barefoot, but it was not the lack of shoes that caught Drake’s attention so much as the fact that the man had in essence appeared behind him with no warning.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” the man said, stalking around Drake in a shuffling sidestep. His head was half-bowed and he looked up from beneath his eyelids, giving his face a sinister appearance that was heightened by the knowing smile on his face. His thinning hair was black and slicked down against his head, letting his ears poke out. Drake made out the shape of an emerald stud in the lobe of one.

  “You are indeed an oddity, Francis Drake,” the man said. His voice was a seductive purr that matched perfectly with the predatory manner in which he circled the new arrivals to his home. “Half-man, half-beast. Half free spirit, half government stooge.”

  “Yeah? Ain’t that four halves?” Drake shot back. “I mean, I ain’t much good at math, but it seems to me that don’t add up right.”

  He watched as the man examined him for another full circuit of his standing form. “Hey! You wanna stop walking in circles and talk to me?” he asked in a gruff tone.

  “Walk in circles, talk in circles,” the man said with an exaggerated flourish of his hands. “All life is a circle, Agent. Embrace it and find your freedom.”

  “Oh, Hell’s teeth, he’s nuts,” Drake grumbled, directing the words to Ian Calder but uncaring as to the fact that they were easily heard by all present. “What is this place?”

  “Some would call it a dimensional pocket,” the man said. “A tesseract, perhaps, or a quantum inversion. I just call it home.”

  “Sorry for the intrusion,” Calder said, easing himself out from beside Drake to extend a hand. The man looked at it for a moment, then reached out and took it briefly into his own.

  “Oh, I know you,” the man said, face splitting wide in a grin that displayed gleaming white teeth. “You’re the changed one. The redeemed. The terror of millions who now fears his own shadow. So tasty, that fear.” He looked up, licking his lips with a quiet smacking sound.

  “And you’re Karma,” Calder said, his voice devoid of all inflection. The color had drained from his face at the words of the man, and his hand went back into the pocket of his jacket.

  “Yes,” Karma replied happily, the word trailing off into a long hiss.

  “This? This is Karma?” Drake asked, jaw dropping open. At his side, Manslaughter nearly doubled over with laughter.

  “Do I disappoint?” Karma asked, cocking his head to the side and arching an eyebrow. “Were you expecting something else?”

  “Sure as Hell wasn’t figuring on you,” Drake replied.

  “She told you,” he said, looking at Manslaughter and clucking his tongue sadly. “Little One, you must learn to be more cautious with whom you speak. What did I tell you about government?”

  “Never trust the government,” Manslaughter muttered, looking at the floor.

  “And why not?”

  “Because it’s full of liars and thieves.”

  “Good girl. Now why don’t you go to your room? I need to have a talk with these gentlemen.”

  “Okay,” Manslaughter said, though her tone made it clear that she was unhappy with the development. She looked at Drake. “I got you here. That was the deal. What happens now is up to you.”

  Drake nodded slowly, allowing her the barest hint of a smile. “She’ll be out first thing in the morning,” he promised.

  As the woman ran from the room, Drake returned his attention to Karma. “If you’re all that she says, why didn’t you spring Aquatica?” he asked.

  “That bothersome woman? She made her own decisions, as must we all. If my daughter has seen fit to develop feelings for her, then that is her own concern. Still,” he said, pausing to tap himself on the side of the head. “I do not think you have traveled here simply to discuss wayward girls.” His eyebrows waggled and he chuckled slightly.

  “No,” Drake admitted. “We came here about Patriot.”

  “Ah, yes. The mighty Patriot and his world-saving,” Karma said, rolling his eyes and throwing up his hands. “It’s always about him!” he suddenly shouted, whirling to glare at Drake. He pointed, his finger shaking and his face reddening.

  Drake recoiled in shock from the sudden emotional turn, glancing over at Calder and shaking his head. “Told you he was nuts,” he said.

  “NO! I am not! What I am is a man who thinks for himself instead of toeing the party line as you do, G-Man!” Karma fairly shouted. He took in a deep breath and let it out, lowering his arms to his sides. His fists clenched and unclenched several times.

  “’G-Man’?” Drake snorted, trying desperately not to laugh. “I’ve been called some weird shit in my time, slick, but ain’t nobody ever called me that.”

  “Look, we didn’t come here to cause trouble,” Calder said. “We just came to see if you could help.”

  “Why don’t you help him yourself?”

  “We’ve been trying, but nothing seems to be geared toward fighting this particular illness. Manslaughter told us you might be the only one that could stop it.”

  “And how is it that she said I could be of help?” Karma asked. The thin smile was back, and he seemed to have lost most of the agitation that had plagued him only seconds before.

  “She says you can do magic,” Drake said, carefully keeping his tone neutral.

  “You wish me to pull a rabbit from a hat? A bouquet from beneath a napkin?”

  “Look, slick, I don’t care if you pull a Buick out of your ass,” Drake said with a shrug of his wide shoulders. “What you do to have fun ain’t my question. What I wanna know is, can you help? It’s a pretty simple question. If the answer’s no, then we’ll go somewhere else.”

  “Nothing is beyond me,” Karma said. He smoothed back an errant lock of his hair that had fallen free and covered his left ear. “But you have not given me a reason to help.”

  “If nothing is beyond you, as you say, what can we offer?” Calder countered. “We can’t perform miracles.”

  “Ah, but you see, that is where you are mistaken,” said Karma. He suddenly lifted free of the floor and hovered six inches above the carpet. “You can do this, yes?”

  “Yes,” Calder admitted.

  “Then show me.”

  Calder raised an eyebrow in curiosity, but did as he was directed, allowing himself to rise free and float in the air. He spread his hands wide and looked expectantly at Karma.

  “A hundred years ago, what you just did would have been called a miracle,” whispered the man.

  “Yeah, and four hundred years ago, it would have been witchcraft,” Drake sighed. “They would have burned him at the stake.”

  “Been on fire,” Calder noted. “Doesn’t do much for the outfit.”

  “And a thousand years ago, it would have been magic,” Karma said, laughter bubbling up from deep within him. “Just like it is now.”

  “It ain’t magic, slick!” Drake protested. “It’s a genetic thing.”

  “Again you spout the party line, brother. Genetics. Science. These things are meaningless to us. We are different. All of us. We have the ability to shape reality to conform to our own will. All you have to do is make it happen. You have made yourselves slaves to someone else’s scheme of reality. Open yourself to your true nature.”

  “I know my nature,” Drake growled from deep within his chest. “It’s pretty much the nature of someone who’s getting really pissed off right now.”

&nbs
p; “You wish violence? Then shoot me, brother,” Karma urged. He smiled widely as he pointed a hand toward the holstered pistols beneath Drake‘s arms. “I promise you, it will give you the proof you need.”

  “Drake, we need his help,” Calder reminded the big booster. He did not bother to turn around, instead keeping his eyes fixed on the small man in the silk shirt.

  “Please, Ian. I need him to do this,” Karma said. “He must be shown that what I say is not some fantasy. Reality is ours to bend as we see fit. Once he knows this he will understand how to aid Patriot.”

  “I’m beginning to think he’s right about you being crazy, pal,” Calder said.

  Drake jerked one of his pistols from its holster and aimed it. “I’ll do it,” he warned. A tiny snick of sound indicated the safety had been disengaged. “I’m tired of the games.”

  “Excellent,” Karma said, rubbing his hands together briskly and quivering with glee. “Pull the trigger and see the light.”

  “Left or right?” Drake asked.

  “Oh, left, to be certain.”

  “What do you mean, ‘left or right’?” Calder asked, turning slightly to see the enormous handgun that was leveled at Karma.

  “Just asking which leg he wants to lose,” Drake said with a sigh. His finger contracted on the trigger.

  “NO!” Calder shouted, throwing himself toward the pistol. The hammer fell forward and he realized with a sinking feeling that he was going to be too late. He braced himself for the explosion of noise to come, stretching out a hand to try and intercept the bullet.

  A dull click sounded from the pistol.

  “It is loaded,” Karma noted as Calder flew past Drake. “I have simply arranged it so that the weapon will not fire.”

  “Son of a…” Drake muttered, jerking back the slide of the pistol. A perfectly serviceable round flipped free of the chamber and he caught it, peering at the primer to see if it had been struck. It was unmarked. He snap-aimed and squeezed the trigger, hearing the dull clicking sound again in response.

  “You see? It is as I said. In your reality, the weapon would fire and my leg would be blown apart. But in mine, it just doesn’t work that way. By the way, I really don’t like guns in my house,” he added. He pointed toward the pistol and pantomimed blowing a kiss. A single white rose sprouted from the barrel, its bud unfolding beautifully.