Broken (Book 3 of The Guardian Interviews)

by Michael Clary

  “Wait a second,” I said. “Let’s go back to black energy and Ichor. How does all of that work?”

  “Sometime in the late 1700’s,” Hardin said. “A depressed scientist began experimenting with fresh corpses. The first thing he did was pervert electricity into something that would power a corpse. Now, don’t ask me to explain how. I’m not a scientist, but he created what we now call black energy. However, this wasn’t enough. The bodies were still decaying because they weren’t truly alive. For that, he needed Ichor. Momo believes Ichor was created from that black fluid the vampires like to drool.”

  “So that glowing disk over Max’s heart was his power source?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Hardin said. “That disk created the black energy that powered his body.”

  “I destroyed that disk,” I said.

  “The body can survive up to twenty four hours on the left over charge,” Hardin said.

  “Max wasn’t the same,” I said. “He seemed comprised of a bunch of different pieces.”

  “All made possible by the Ichor in his veins,” Hardin said. “With Ichor, you could mix and match all sorts of body parts together and make them work. You can also add metal body armor under the skin without fear of killing the host.”

  “That’s why fire got to him,” Nick said. “Frankenstein doesn’t like fire.”

  “The Monster isn’t called Frankenstein,” Javie said. “Try and read a book every now and then.”

  “Whatever, asshole,” Nick said.

  “Geez,” Dudley interrupted. “How awesome would that be? You could basically just upgrade yourself whenever you wanted to.”

  “It wouldn’t be awesome at all,” Hardin said. “The creature isn’t alive. He doesn’t feel things like a human being. He functions, but he feels very little. Pain means almost nothing to him. Only fire can create a strong enough sensation for him to feel.”

  “So how do I fight him?” I asked.

  “You don’t,” Hardin said. “We’ll get a big enough gun and tear him to pieces with the bullets. Not even a Guardian can fight a creature that feels no pain, has no weaknesses, and won’t get tired.”

  “He’ll get tired twenty four hours after you pull his battery out,” Georgie added.

  “Yes,” Dudley said, “but who the hell can fight him for that long? Mr. Hardin is right. We need to either light him up or blow him to pieces with the guns.”

  “How strong is he?” I asked.

  “The original creature was incredibly strong,” Hardin answered. “Max seems to be an upgrade from the original, so I won’t even hazard a guess.”

  “He gets his strength from the Ichor in his veins, doesn’t he?” I asked.

  “That sounds pretty accurate,” Hardin answered. “You can’t bleed him out either. Ichor is thick. It doesn’t flow like blood.”

  “Jaxon,” Dudley said. “You’re not going to fight him. You don’t need to. We’ll take him out at a distance, okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said only because I didn’t have a solution to the problem…yet.

  Chapter 12

  Dudley

  Dudley was in an odd mood when he walked into the room. Evidently he was still worried about what questions I might be asking him. He made some jokes, he drank some weird shake, and screamed out “Rock n Roll” every time I tried talking to him.

  It wasn’t until I promised not to ask him about his feelings during what the team refers to as their dark days that he finally calmed down.

  “Jaxon took me all the way to the meeting in the underground bunker. I now know how the Monster was resurrected.”

  What does that tell you about our lives that nobody questioned whether it was true or not? Geez, the world we live in. Still, I guess that’s why we get paid the big bucks. Fighting monsters isn’t easy.

  “Is that what you were thinking when you learned about Max?”

  Well, you’ve seen the video he released to the news stations. It sort of made sense just by looking at him. Fighting him was a nightmare. The son of a bitch was tough. What really made me nervous was my uncle. Jaxon had unfinished business with the Monster. I didn’t like the way the gears started turning in his head after we told him not to go out and fight the bastard again.

  I was going to beat a dead horse and continue pressing my uncle to control himself but Georgie interrupted.

  “So what are the plans so far?” Georgie asked. “What are we doing to keep the zombies from crossing into New Mexico?”

  “I have choppers carrying boulders on the way,” Mr. Hardin said. “The plan is to drop these boulders up and down the Rio Grande in a wall. When the dead climb over the wall, we’ll shoot them down.”

  Jaxon told him how stupid that idea was. Because that’s how Jaxon tends to talk to people, and Mr. Hardin then asked my uncle if he had a better plan. Jax smiled. After that, Jaxon began talking, and the rest of us tried to keep up with him.

  He had crazy ideas and we ate them up. Crazy wins the day, especially when it’s coming from Jaxon. Mr. Hardin was on the phone immediately. He was following Jaxon’s plan to the letter until he asked for swords and shields.

  “Why do we want swords and shields?” Mr. Hardin asked. “We have guns.”

  “This fight will be up close and personal whether you like it or not,” Jaxon said. “The zombies will swarm into the biggest horde we’ve ever seen. Explosions might work but they won’t stop all of them. The dust will get kicked up, and visibility will be tough. Also, Max will be expecting guns.”

  “Not counting five Special Forces teams, I only have two hundred and forty-three soldiers,” Mr. Hardin said. “Those were the volunteers that stayed behind. The military won’t give me anymore: not with our chance of failure being so high.”

  “You ever hear about the battle of Thermopylae? Jaxon asked.

  Mr. Hardin smiled, and then he made calls. He wanted a surplus of short swords and big shields, and he wanted them by the thousands.

  Things were set into motion. Jaxon still wasn’t satisfied. He wanted something else. He wanted an ace in the hole. He began to pace the room. The tomahawk twirled in his hand.

  “What ever happened to that vampire Ivana found?” He asked abruptly.

  More calls were made. Ivana left for New York within the hour.

  Eventually, after we had planned and planned, after we had gone over just about any scenario we could possibly think of, the meeting was over. Mr. Hardin took his leave. The man looked worried. I couldn’t blame him. Somehow we had missed the sunrise and were greeted by the sunset when we exited the bunker. All that time planning and it still didn’t seem like we were ready.

  We said our goodbyes to the family soon after Mr. Hardin left. They were going to be spending some time in Alaska far away from the troubles in El Paso. Tears were shed. Skie and Jaxon embraced. He whispered something in her ear. She smiled despite herself, and then she hugged him again before getting in the waiting car.

  Only the Regulators were left after that. We sat around. We ate. We didn’t joke much. We went to sleep. We woke up. We were having coffee on the porch as a car pulled into the driveway. Each of us was given a suitcase.

  We hauled the suitcases into the living room and opened them up. Our gear had arrived. All of us began to suit up. It was a surreal moment. It was a moment we had dreamed about but thought would never again happen. I pulled on the pants and shirt of the bite suit. I shoved my feet into the boots. I strapped on the knee and elbow pads. I clicked on the utility belt and zipped up the utility vest.

  The need for silenced weapons had passed. All of us were using assault type shotguns, except for Georgie and Jaxon. Georgie decided to use an AK47, and my uncle chose his old youth model Winchester twenty gauge that he swore was the best shotgun he’d ever used. Of course, he pulled out the plug and loaded it up with slugs. He also attached a sling.

  “He used a youth gun?”

  My grandpa got it for Jaxon when he was a kid. It’s a great gun and Jaxon has always appre
ciated its smaller size.

  We cheered when Jax shoved a Harley Davidson cap backwards on his head. We laughed when Georgie put on a helmet. We were still laughing when a helicopter landed in the driveway to pick us up.

  The view of the mountains from the air was breathtaking. I enjoyed the ride. It was peaceful. That is, until we left the mountains. Once we reached the town, things looked differently. A mass exodus of cars filled the roads.

  “I thought they’d be finished with the evacuations by now,” Nick said.

  Nobody replied. We just watched all the cars driving away to safety. When we flew over the freeways, we saw even more cars. Everyone was leaving. We were headed to war. The Regulators had never gone to war before. We had our little missions, but never was the fate of the world so violently shoved into our hands.

  I was scared. It sucks to admit that, but I’m not going to lie. I was going to kill, and I was going to see others get killed. Violence was in my future. There would be no running. I would stand beside my teammates and fight until I was dead, or my enemies had all been destroyed.

  I rested my hands on top of my shotgun in order to keep them from shaking, and I watched the evacuation far below us.

  Everyone stayed quiet until we crossed over Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Nick opened his mouth.

  “Too bad you aren’t going to fight the Monster,” Nick said. “You could have had your Batman moment.”

  “My what?” Jaxon asked with a confused look on his face.

  “You know,” Nick said. “Batman was all badass, and then Bane comes around and beats him up. So, Batman goes to prison until he gets even tougher. Then they have a rematch and Batman saves the day.”

  “Batman didn’t go to prison,” Georgie said. “His back was broken.”

  “Nick is talking about the movie not the comic book,” Javie added.

  “Regardless,” Nick said. “The Monster is Jaxon’s Bane.”

  “Shut up, Nick,” I growled. “Don’t give my uncle any bad ideas.”

  “I’m not,” Nick said. “We’ll take the fucker out just like we planned. I’m just saying, is all.”

  I didn’t like the look on Jaxon’s face. I didn’t like it one bit. He was looking at Nick, but his mind was far away. The gears were turning once again.

  We flew over El Paso. The pilot wouldn’t show us the gathering horde but he assured us it was there. For the past couple days Max had been driving around the city blaring out that weird foghorn sound of his in an effort to gather his army.

  The chopper flew down Country Club Road, and I saw Jaxon’s plan laid out before me. Let me set this up for you, if you don’t mind.

  “That would be great.”

  If you remember, Country Club Road goes right over the Rio Grande in a small bridge and ends up in New Mexico. Now, we blew this bridge when we escaped from El Paso way back when. The military had since replaced it with a drawbridge, and they had also cleared all the abandoned vehicles off the street at some point.

  Rocks, giant boulders really, were piled up on both sides of the two-lane street leading up to the bridge. They ran down Country Club away from the bridge for about the length of a football field. The zombies wouldn’t be able to climb over them. Hell, they wouldn’t even try, because our small army of soldiers would be between those walls of rock with their shields and swords.

  “You were going to squeeze the horde into a small area in order to control their massive numbers. Now I see why the General asked Mr. Hardin if he’d ever heard about the battle of Thermopylae.”

  Then you get it right? The zombies would head right for the people, and in order to do so, they would have to squeeze their numbers between the walls of rock. By doing that, we wouldn’t get surrounded, and we could also control how many attacked at one time.

  Since the conception of the plan, Mr. Hardin had the soldiers training to fight with swords and shields. Those poor guys probably never expected to need skills like that.

  The helicopter landed.

  Mr. Hardin, Snake Charmer, and his new team approached us immediately. Merrick sniffed each of their hands before allowing them to get too close.

  “Our weapons have been sabotaged,” Mr. Hardin said. “Most of the explosives have been stolen; the majority of the rifles have been destroyed. How’d you know Max would attack our weapons?”

  “Because I would have done the same thing in his shoes,” Jaxon said. “How long ago did this happen?”

  “My men are trying to piece that together now,” Mr. Hardin answered. “We’re guessing just a little over an hour ago. Four guards are dead. We had no idea we’d even been struck until the ordinance went off. By then whoever hit us was long gone.”

  “He probably sent his men to do that,” Jaxon said. “Snake Charmer, are you and your men ready to go?”

  “All Special Forces teams have been deployed,” Snake Charmer said. “Except for mine.”

  “Good hunting then,” Jaxon said. “Don’t let us get shot.”

  Snake Charmer laughed and set out. His job and the job of the four other Special Forces teams were to take out the Albanian Mafia members that worked for Max. They stationed themselves throughout the area and ambushed our ambushers. I have to say, those teams are incredible. We were never once shot at during the entire battle.

  “Do you have any other explosives?” Jaxon asked.

  “I’m sure I can scrounge up something if you have an idea,” Mr. Hardin answered.

  “I do,” Jaxon said. “I’ll also need a remote detonator.”

  Another helicopter approached from the distance. Ivana ran out of it carrying a large cooler. She immediately ran to Jaxon.

  “I’ve got everything you need,” Ivana said. “She was more than happy to help out. Momo has her set up quite nicely in exchange for her good behavior. They also keep her well fed.”

  “What do I need to do?” Jaxon asked.

  “It’s easy,” Ivana said. “You just draw a symbol with the blood and light it on fire. Just make sure the blood never gets put in the sunlight. It’ll dissolve before you need it, and they won’t come until nightfall anyway.”

  “Got it,” Jaxon said. “How do I light it up?”

  “Momo included a small fire starter gizmo,” Ivana said. “After you draw the symbol, just place the gizmo in the blood. When you’re ready, hit the button on the remote. All of them will burn at the same time.”

  “Gotcha,” Jaxon said. “Now give me a hug and get out of here. I want you safe.”

  “I’m worried about you,” Ivana cried as she hugged my uncle. “Please don’t do anything too crazy.”

  Jaxon laughed at that. Ivana hugged me, and then she was back in the chopper flying far away from El Paso. Jaxon sighed a contentedly as he watched her leave. Our loved ones were safe.

  “You wanna go for a walk?” He asked.

  “Nothing better to do,” I answered.

  With that, we had the drawbridge lowered, and Merrick, Jaxon, and I stepped into El Paso. The day was warm but it wasn’t too hot. It was a nice day. The smell of rot was not yet in the air. It would come, though. It would definitely come.

  We went from house to house. Jaxon would kick in a door and we’d clear a room. He would then open up the cooler, grab a paint brush and paint a weird circle symbol somewhere in a dark corner. After that, he set a tiny box with wires in the blood.

  “Is that vampire blood?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Jaxon answered.

  “How many of these are we going to set up?” I asked.

  “How many fire starter gizmos are there?” Jaxon asked in return.

  “Looks to be about a hundred,” I said.

  “Sounds good to me,” Jaxon said. “If it works, it’ll be worth the work.”

  It ended up taking most of the day. Every now and then we’d encounter zombies in the houses. Jaxon would take care of them immediately. The tomahawk would flash through the air and bodies would drop. Merrick and I did our best to help him but he didn’t
need much in the way of assistance. All in all, there weren’t a lot of them in the area.

  “AAAAWWWWOOOOAAAA!”

  That’s the sound we heard about our third house in. It was distant but Jaxon still stopped his symbol painting.

  “That explains why this area is so vacant,” Jaxon said. “Any shambler that can has already set out after Max; he’s going to have one hell of an army with him.”

  I must have looked worried.

  “Listen,” Jax said. “Just fight. That’s all you have to do. Don’t worry about anything else. Keep yourself safe. Stay by the team, and fight.”

  I nodded that I understood.

  An hour before sunset we made our way across the bridge. Mr. Hardin met us with the last of the explosives.

  “Is this big enough to take out the bridge?” Jaxon asked.

  “Just set them on the corners,” Mr. Hardin said. “It won’t be a big explosion, but it’ll do what you’re asking.”

  With that, Jaxon and Merrick vanished under the bridge. I didn’t know what he was planning. I figured it was just a failsafe in case the zombies attempted to cross the border. I should have paid a bit more attention; the bridge was a drawbridge. It didn’t need a failsafe.

  I watched as some soldiers set up a large camera on a long pole before the drawbridge. The video from that camera was being monitored by the military. If the zombies crossed over the border, they would see it happen. I could just imagine a bunch of old duffers sitting around a big monitor with their fingers on a button.

  I didn’t want to blow up. The stupid camera was giving me the creeps. I walked away from it and went and sat next to the rest of the team on the banks of the river. Together we watched the Rio Grande flow on by.

  A soldier came and dropped off our shields. Nick and I didn’t need a sword. I was going to use my machete, and Nick was comfortable with his fireman’s axe. The round shields were immense. They covered us from shin to jaw. It looked as if they were made from some sort of black colored, high tech plastic, so they were much lighter than they appeared.

  “I wonder where Mr. Hardin got all these swords and shields in such a short amount of time?” Javie asked, as he twirled his sword.