INHUMANUM: A THRILLER (Law of Retaliation Book 1)

by Bradley Ernst

  With that, Henna bludgeoned the skinheads’ dirty fingers and surprised them with a second jar of mustard gas. The oily fluid would us-u-ally take hours, or days to cause victims to expire, but the wily tox-i-cologist had added some garnish to the recipe to make it faster acting. She flung the jar into their midst and secured the rope while they died. Victorious, Henna stumbled toward the transmission shop in need of water and sleep. She was on the run now—and life as usual had become, well, quite un-usual indeed.

  ~Mala Mujer

  Henna slept a dreamless sleep on the plane. Bonn met her, as promised. Her whole body ached. She felt like she had a crust—a rind—a scaly caul over her. She worried that she smelled bad.

  Did evil cling to you when you wallowed nearby? If she did stink, Bonn was too kind to say so.

  “I’m excited for you to see the lab.” She was glad for the reason not to talk about her spur-of-the-moment arrival. She bought a large bottle of water. Bonn led her to an old black car. The water was clean. It was cold, yet warmed her. She felt her cells suck at it before it even hit her stomach. When the soil of her brain got what it needed, she felt more like herself again. A stronger version of herself.

  A galvanized version.

  A thought warmed her from within—

  Now, Stephan is safe.

  The lab was amazing. She walked the wide aisles. At the end of one, an odd dark man on a ladder painted something on the wall. It looked like Vitruvian man. Unlike da Vinci’s original, however, the man held bouquets in each fist. Each cluster of flowers reached the edge of the circle he stood within, so although his hands weren’t open, the idea of proportion remained. As she got closer, she recognized each bouquet.

  “Mala mujer!” Henna exclaimed.

  The dark man was gifted.

  His work channeled—hearkened the shouts of ancient Dutch masters, with an even older, darker religious flavor—Vermeer-like with an inkling of dread in the style of Hieronymus Bosch. The shine and shadows of life and decay, a snake in a bride’s bouquet, a spider perched on a perfect ripe plum. The painter tilted his head at a birdlike angle to peer down at her. He had remarkably thin lips. He flicked his head, unceremoniously—like a woodpecker who has paused to look about, then remembered his goal, and returned to his work. His fingers moved delicately as he painted hair-like thorns on each stalk. The figure also held a shock of bright red castor flowers.

  The mother of Ricin. Did the figure have breasts?

  Henna stepped back to take in the whole painting. The third and fourth hands held western water hemlock and wolfsbane. Henna felt a chill. She stepped closer.

  It was her face.

  It was unmistakable. The odd man had given the figure her face. It was more beautiful than she was—eyes wise and calm—they saw through the rubbish of time and temperament, past the walls of the lab into space. Not only did various snakes adorn her crown of death, her Medusa-like hair also hid several blue-ringed octopus tentacles and half a dozen dripping scorpion tails. The chemical makeup of each beautiful, poisonous horror faded in smoky calligraphy in the background. Unlike Henna, the painted figure had no weakness. Here was a sister of Freyja—a cousin of Enyo, of Agasaya. She was in the company of Kali, but instead of blades to do her work, she might summon the Valkyries to carry a corpse to Valhalla, or just as easily, Bastet—to heal with her ointment jar. “An ode.” The man looked at her—intense. Hawk-like.

  Had he spoken? She wasn’t sure—

  “An ode—in paint.” The man’s thin lips moved again. The inside of his mouth seemed black and tongue-less. His lips were stiff, like a sea turtle. His hawk-like eyes blinked with un-hawk like slowness that somehow seemed respectful.

  His lids were wrong. She must be seeing things.

  Henna swore she saw a nictitating membrane. One human set of eyelids, but also a second set.

  Like a crocodile. She needed sleep. That’s what it was. No doubt the man was a master of paint, but he was just a man. Her brain played tricks.

  Bonn didn’t bother to introduce the painter. He continued the tour as though they were alone. Down another aisle, a similar thin-lipped man lurked inside an enclosure. She looked closely at him. There were only subtle differences between him and the man on the ladder. This man squatted among a knot of cane toads. The amphibians appeared lined up for communion—in an orderly fashion. The guy tossed a baby mouse into each grateful mouth then popped one in his own maw. He swallowed the hairless, pink rodent whole and appeared satisfied. Henna rubbed her eyes and felt her own mouth open involuntarily. She bunched her eyebrows together and looked from the man to Bonn and back with disbelief. “Did he just eat a—a—”

  “Rickard,” Bonn offered. “A mouse, yes—they eat all manner of things. I’m not certain why. The one on the ladder was Ryker. They’ll grow on you. They can do anything and are helpful.” Rickard peered at her through the glass. She felt uncertain. Then, swiveling his head like an owl, he focused on something distant. She followed his gaze—a television appeared to be his new source of fascination. Bonn walked quickly to the screen and increased the volume. When Ryker materialized at her elbow, she jumped. She’d not heard him approach. The television played a commercial for a mobility chair. Her intense host nodded. He held his hands out to mimic the infirm but ecstatic grandfather who toggled the freedom-delivering joystick. “Yes. That’s it,” Said Bonn. The raptor-men, now side by side, nodded in unison. “Let’s get started.”

  ~Spectacle

  Bonn usually talked to Manny twice each week. The machinist no longer needed to work. He worked when he chose to. Many times they only discussed cars.

  You know what I’m doing, son? I’m fitting an SRT 10 Viper power plant into an old Challenger—I’ve even got it rigged with paddle shifters.

  Not stock huh? What a shame, Manny. You are ruining it.

  Manny got the joke on their last visit, but he’d really laugh if he saw Bonn’s current project.

  The power chair wasn’t a classic. It was ugly as sin, yet functional. Just the tool he needed to enter the lion’s den.

  Bonn tightened a bolt. He ran a compression check. It worked. He was done. Rotational weight minimized, chassis lowered—the chair’s new top speed was 35mph. The frame was pressurized. It could deliver short and mid-range bursts of Henna’s special recipe as slurry or a juggernaut of corn-plastic shells full of death-powder at a cyclic rate. The barrel was shrouded but not terribly quiet. It didn’t need to be. If he squeezed that trigger, everyone around him would die. Bonn checked the time. He’d been in the shop for hours. It was time to stretch his legs. In the lab, Ryker worked inside a pharmaceutical hood. Henna supervised as he cleaned up the last of the powder inside the hood with a solution which rendered it inert. The German pulled an arm from a gasket-sleeved gauntlet to pop a mealworm into his mouth. The lovely scientist shook her head and closed her eyes. Rickard worked over a small still containing green tobacco leaves. The temperature was set to facilitate nicotine distillation. The plants were so heavy with nicotine in their natural state, Henna encouraged the German to wear gloves throughout the process. Checking the yield from the still’s last batch, their resident toxin guru tapped some numbers into a calculator.

  “Unless we make a second still, the eleven hundred milliliters the chair needs won’t be ready for another—two days.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.” Bonn looked from one German to the other. The men seemed to adore Henna. They acted funny around her—as if they wanted to please her above all other things. They’d always seemed like robotic lizards to him. He couldn’t recall ever shaking hands with either man, but imagined if he did, their skin would feel cool.

  They consumed their own weight in lab-animal food.

  He hadn’t noticed it until Henna came to stay.

  She was so—normal?

  No—she wasn’t normal. The Germans who repulsed her likely revered the lady because she shared their stratospheric level of brilliance. He wondered what the world was like
for Henna—what the world seemed like to her. What would it feel like to be shocked? It wasn’t lost on Bonn that he kept odd company—even Rupert was off. Manny and Linda were the only normal people he knew. “I’m going to see my grandfather tomorrow,” Henna told him. “I think you should have what you need for the chair.” Henna looked around with her eyebrows raised, perhaps to see if the Germans had heard her. The reptilian duo became immobile. They gawked at Henna like infatuated iguanas. Henna flipped through a stack of menus from local restaurants. “Does anyone want human food? Thai? Indian?”

  “Indian,” Bonn offered. The Germans looked at each other and shared a long, quiet moment. Finally, Ryker held up a squat Styrofoam cup and shook his head. Their meaning was clear:

  We have crickets. Who could want more?

  When Henna returned with the takeout, she gawked around the room as though a freakish spectacle had taken place. Bonn looked around for the Germans. The men had set up a camera to monitor the still, but watched the gauges on a monitor they had installed in the shrikethrush enclosure. Sporting speedos, they basked under the full spectrum light as if they required it—their foreheads pointed toward the light though their eyes stayed on the monitor. Bonn imagined vestigial third eyes on their foreheads as they made small neck corrections, as though their heads were satellite dishes listening for that elusive alien ping. The shrikethrush hopped happily to Ryker and nestled into the arch of his foot. Bonn saw that the scene had intrigued Henna, somehow, and wondered himself, for a moment, at the Germans behind the glass.

  The men were so pale an hour ago. Now they looked like mottled, brown parchment.

  Without her, he no longer registered the Germans’ odd behaviors. Early on, the men had been a distracting source of entertainment and speculation, though somehow their usefulness had kept his questions at bay—before he’d grown accustomed to them. Certainly, people who kept exotic, scaly pets were similarly riveted at first. As a boy, Bonn had fantasized that his father had made a deal with the Devil: that these were his capable henchmen. Later, he imagined they were the product of a mad scientist. Finally, he decided that Europeans in general were unpredictable. He hadn’t met too many Germans. Certainly Henna had met more … what were Henna’s thoughts about the pair? There was nothing to gain by asking. Perhaps when she returned from Ruka, he would notice that they had grown claws—or even tails, but those nuances might escape him in her absence. Bonn maneuvered the wheelchair to the boxes on the counter and poked around to find his order. He paused to take a bite of tandoori, shrugged at Henna, then raced away again.

  ~Bespoke

  Henna married Alvar and Akka in the garden. Since she wasn’t a minister, it wasn’t a legal wedding—but no one required one. Akka clutched a simple bouquet of daffodils and Alvar bragged about his suit.

  “A bespoke suit!” he declared, tugging at the sleeve. “The stitching is solid. It should last me another twenty, maybe even thirty years.”

  Akka’s daughters came, as well as her two granddaughters, and nine great-granddaughters. Pies were everywhere. Sugared-up children chased each other and squealed. A tiny girl squatted next to a basket of puppies.

  Why had she worried that Alvar would be lonely?

  She loved seeing him so happy. Akka doted on him. She watched as the gleeful bride cut Alvar several thin wedges of pie. Akka sat on Alvar’s lap near the hearth and spooned bits of the treats into his mouth. Each time she offered a new bite, she whispered into Alvar’s ear, presumably the next flavor.

  It was lovely.

  A girl of seven stared awkwardly at her. She had wild curls and deep blue eyes with a speck of brown in one. Henna stood and offered her hand to the girl. “Can I show you a game I learned when I was your age?” Happily, the child took her hand. They walked through the old gate, past the garden. Henna closed her eyes and held her arms wide.

  It could be a new world. She could help change it.

  “I smell something delicious—”

  ~Hunting the Devil

  Bonn rolled into Brownsville on the weaponized wheelchair just before dark. He wore a helmet on his head, which he allowed to loll about loosely on his feeble neck. He left his mouth agape. He forced his head back to hide his strong jaw and drooled a bit. He’d worked to replicate the adenoidal sonorous breathing someone with a bad traumatic brain injury might exhibit and it was believable. He didn’t remember it, but he’d sounded similar after Raquel shot him. A cheap fleece blanket covered his invalid lap. A garish tiger’s head decorated the blanket—the type people bought at state fairs after too many pitchers of beer. The black barrels of the weapon systems on board were camouflaged by the stripes of the cat, just inside each armrest. Bonn wore a huge grey sweatshirt. Heavy armor plates that would stop most bullets were hidden underneath the sweatshirt. They covered his chest, back, and sides. They could withstand multiple strikes from rifle-caliber rounds. Two ballistic Kevlar blankets lay beneath the head of the massive tiger. Even the soft collar Bonn wore to keep his head from bobbing about was made from ballistic cloth.

  He’d never before been so armored.

  The plan was simple: enter Brownsville, do the right thing, make the time count. Bonn rolled up the street at a lazy pace. He paused for a stray cat to cross his path and pivoted the chair in jagged movements to watch it, as though his neck didn’t articulate.

  “Kitty?” Bonn grinned like an idiot. He forced his tongue out in a grotesque smile. Some school-aged girls pointed and giggled. The woman with them hurried them along. An old Buick with bare brake pads announced danger with a metallic hiss. A shirtless man hung his arms out of the window. He wore a purple baseball cap with a marijuana leaf emblem on the front. Bonn stopped the chair and toggled the joystick to face the car.

  There was a second man in the passenger’s seat—taller. Also shirtless—no cap.

  Bonn couldn’t see through the darkly tinted rear windows. “What up, retardo?” Bonn flicked his middle finger of his right hand quickly. A jet of nicotine-laced silica slurry blasted the driver squarely in the eyes. The man recoiled, his mouth open with surprise. Bonn delivered a second blast. Laughter came from the rear of the car.

  There were people in the back. They thought the driver mimicked him—the handicap.

  Bonn spun the chair a quarter turn and rounded the rear of the car. He stopped even with the passenger’s window.

  He’d give everyone a reasonable chance to do the right thing.

  “Quit playin’.” The passenger yelled at the driver. He had realized something was wrong. Turning from the dead man, he saw Bonn looming outside his open window. Bonn blinked slowly.

  “Hi.” He let his head bobble like a newborn baby for a moment. The man pointed a pistol at Bonn. With the slightest shift of tiger stripes, Bonn sprayed him.

  The chair turned on a dime.

  Now at the left rear door, as if on cue, a fat man with a purple hat stepped out.

  Shotgun.

  Bonn tapped the switch. The man buckled, retching. The sound of a round being chambered in a carbine came from inside. Bonn drenched the back seat. A fourth man stumbled into the street opposite Bonn. He made gasping sounds and fell.

  The concentrated nicotine was bad stuff.

  Even indirect blasts did the job—of course the slurry splattered a lot—some of it must have hit their mucous membranes.

  Henna said it had to.

  Bonn motored back to the sidewalk and sped around a corner. A block away a group had formed. It looked like a fight. Bonn sped toward the group. A tight circle of teenage boys stood around something.

  Something screaming.

  He was just behind the circle now. The teens ignored him—in the center of the circle a boy had a girl’s pants down. She cried out. She struggled to free herself. Bonn coughed loudly and the nearest delinquent startled. He looked Bonn over with a mixture of confusion and disgust. Bonn forced his face into an idiot grin.

  He couldn’t hit the girl.

  “Ar-r-r-r-re you help
ing her?”

  More confused faces looked up. None of the teens appeared willing to help her. Bonn rammed the nearest boy with the chair and pivoted it in a circle. He’d welded a spike to the footrest and the metal ripped the thug’s calf muscle away. He spun in an arc, got the chair up to speed, and rammed the circle again. A few of the miscreants broke away, but none ran. Bonn tapped the slurry switch several times. They dropped like flies. The boy with the ripped calf screamed, and the circle scattered. The remaining boys acted like hyenas. They ran few yards and shifted back and forth. They looked for weakness. One pulled something from a pocket. Bonn twisted a knob and toggled the switch. The slurry flew in a fine jet and dropped him.

  Bonn maneuvered the chair to the girl. “Can you move?”

  She struggled with her pants. Bonn peeled back the tiger and covered her with a ballistic blanket from his lap as he nodded at a parked car. “When you can, get yourself under that car until I’m gone, OK?”

  The boy with the torn calf was up. He hopped toward the sidewalk. With each movement, the loose muscle bobbed angrily behind him like a kangaroo tail. Bonn toggled the switch and dropped him. Only one was left. Some of them had escaped. The rapist raced down the street at a sprint. Bonn pushed the joystick forward and ran him down. The pants tripped him.

  Should’ve kept them fastened.

  Bonn eased off the joystick. He aimed the spike at the fallen rapist’s liver. With the spike sunk to the hilt, he turned the chair sharply. Blood filled the street in a great red swoosh.