by Frankie Rose
The light from the moon was bright tonight. I hunkered down in the driver’s seat of the Charger, trying to stay out of sight. I preferred nights where the darkness was so complete you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face. I had better night vision than any Immundus, or Immortal, for that matter. Having the upper hand tonight would be very convenient.
The Dodge was shot to all hell. The Reavers’ men would know it by sight but I didn’t have it in me to get rid of her. We’d been together for thirty years and I’d fixed her up from worse. If anyone noticed me, I’d just have to deal with them and hope reinforcements didn’t show.
There were over a hundred different access points into the fastness that I knew of, spanning a circumference of LA that covered at least sixty miles. Some were more popular than others. I’d spent the last week rotating between back alleys in the heart of the city to deserted gas stations in the sticks, but had very little luck. There was less movement than usual, and everyone I picked up claimed they knew nothing of the Reavers’ plans. I could see the fear in their eyes, though, and knew they were lying. They were more afraid of what Elliot would do to them alive than the clean death I would deal them.
Aldan would have known how to make them talk, how to persuade them it was in their best interests, but I couldn’t think about what the old man might have done. Even remembering Aldan sent a searing hot bolt of pain through my ribcage. I’d tried to lock away all the hurt of losing him, but it was useless. My treasure chest of pain was already brimming over with memories of Jamie. Both my brother and Aldan just wouldn’t fit in at the same time.
The past month had been bad. The impact of losing my mentor would hit me when I least expected it, tearing me apart. I blacked out a lot of it. The last time it had happened, I’d been in the middle of threatening a guard tied to a chair. The next thing I knew every stick of furniture in the motel room was destroyed and the guard had my knife buried hilt-deep in his thigh and was pleading for his life. Apparently my fits of rage were terrifying displays. It didn’t take long for that particular guard, the only one to talk, to crumble. Before he’d died, he told me Elliot wasn’t coming into the city these days.
I could only guess what the evil monster was up to—sticking to the Tower no doubt, gathering his minions around him, waiting to strike. It would only be a matter of time.
The seal above my heart itched, the one I knew Farley had been studying oh-so-covertly that night in the hangar, and I gave a wry smile. I’d worn the seal for over a hundred years. I’d never thought about it as anything more than a depiction of the prophecy, but now I knew it was so much more. I felt the stirrings and let my mind drift momentarily, listening to the soft whispering of the dormant thing inside me agreeing. It had a thousand voices but they always said the same thing, so it was hard to decide whether it was one or many. Either way, it knew what the seal meant, too.
Me. And her.
Getting lost in that voice was so easy. I forcefully dragged my attention back to the run-down, abandoned fire station. Clouds rolled heavily across the sky and I breathed a sigh of relief as the night closed in. I sat forward, sensing movement across the road. A large, black, windowless truck had been parked outside the building for the last twenty minutes. Its engine was idling, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was something worth investigating. I was right.
The old roller shutter at the front of the fire station began to inch its way up. It jarred on its tracks, grinding on the rust, stiff from disuse. It halted altogether for a second, and then a pair of huge hands appeared from underneath, forcing it up in one swift movement to reveal three large men. The silver of their eyes reflected in the dark, paler than the moon and perfectly round, like the outline of an eclipse. None of their faces were familiar.
The men made their way to the truck, and two of them got in the front cab, while the other opened up the rear doors and disappeared back into the fire station. The truck’s lights came on, and I slouched down, counting down the seconds until they noticed the car on the other side of the street.
Ten seconds passed by, and then another ten, and the two men remained in the cab of the truck. Suspicion coursed through my veins. The thing inside me sparked with anticipation, waiting and ready to leap into action. I felt it in every part of my body: something wasn’t right.
A flash of white was suddenly visible from inside the fire station. It grew in size until the third Immundus came back into view. He pulled the small frame of a woman behind him. Her thin white dress hung off her emaciated frame, and her shoulder blades protruded sickeningly, heightened by the fact that her hands were bound behind her back. A hessian bag covered her head, and her feet were bare against the shattered glass that glinted prettily on the sidewalk. She stumbled forward, tripping into the back of the hulking Immundus. He jerked her forcefully by the arm, causing her to lose her balance even further. He snarled at her under his breath, and I knew there was nothing good in store for the poor woman. Something had to be done.
The energy inside me came alive, and I was comforted by the power of it pulsing through my body. There was no doubt I could take all three of them, but I wasn’t stupid enough to take that fact for granted.
I waited until the woman was lifted into the back of the van before I got out of the car. The Immundus didn’t notice me until I was right on top of him, and his surprised swing flew through thin air as I stepped neatly out of the way.
The Immundus came forward and lunged again, this time producing a large Bowie knife from inside his jacket. The metal sang as it sliced through the air towards my throat. I darted back to avoid the blade and blocked up, throwing the Immundus’ arm wide, then delivered a blow to the man’s left shoulder, knocking him off balance.
I heard a small, guttural cry from the woman in the back of the van and took a step towards the doors, but the Immundus recovered quicker than I anticipated. He struck me on the temple and suddenly my head was ringing. I recovered myself and faced the man again, concentrating this time, studying the way he moved.
The man was big and heavy, too keen for a quick win. The next time he came forward, I was prepared. The Immundus swiped the blade towards him, and I feinted to the left, blocking my arm up again. This time I twisted the man’s arm back on itself in a swift move that plunged the blade straight down into his own throat. Metal dragged over bone when it made contact, and the Immundus spluttered as he sank to his knees, wide-eyed in disbelief. The man pulled the blade from his neck and it clattered to the floor. I didn’t waste time watching him choke on his own blood.
I swung round and made for the van door, but predictably the two Immundus in the cab had come to join the fight. The power inside me fluctuated impatiently. This was taking too long. I lowered the wall that kept the huge power at bay and let it course through my body until it blistered inside every fiber of my being. Then I let it go.
It was such a short blast that I wondered for a second if I’d given enough, but when I looked around I saw with satisfaction that the two men were lying flat on their backs. They appeared unharmed, but I knew better. The shock wave would have scrambled their internal organs and turned their bones to jelly.
A whole lot cleaner than knives and guns, I thought, as I took a second to look down at the Immundus at my feet. He had finally stopped wheezing through the red froth at his mouth and was staring up at the night sky with a look of gentle surprise on his face.
I stepped over the body and swung open the door to the van. The woman strained against the thick rope that bound her hands together, and small bands of blood ran down her hands as she pulled and writhed.
“Hey. Hey, don’t worry.” I stepped up into the vehicle, reaching out to steady her as she rushed towards me. She buried her face through the hessian sack into my shoulder, and I shushed her as I tried to undo her bindings. She pushed her face against me again with increasing force, and I held her back, surprised at how strong she was for such a small, frail thing.
The ro
pe finally fell and suddenly the woman leapt forward, clawing at me with long, filthy fingernails. She knocked me backwards out of the van and I fell with a huff onto my back on the hard, wet road. Alarm bells were going off. I managed to roll to the right just in time as the woman jumped forward out of the van. She landed on all fours exactly where I had lain.
“What the…?!” I leapt to my feet and faced the crouching woman. She looked as though she were preparing to launch herself at me again.
“What the hell’s wrong with you? I’m trying to help, okay? Just take a moment. Breathe.”
The crouching figure began to rise and my body tensed, something inside warning me of danger. She was standing at full height now. She didn’t even come up to my shoulder, yet a thrill of adrenaline burst through me.
She tilted her covered head slowly to one side, and then reached her dirty, blackened hand up to pull the bag away. When it fell to the floor, I staggered back, repulsed. She began to move forward slowly, like a prowling animal.
Her filthy, matted dark hair fell in tangled knots to her shoulders and was plastered with sweat to her forehead. It hung down in her eyes. Terrifying, deadly eyes—white, and loaded with malice.
Blackened lips twisted back into a permanent snarl, and she bared her broken teeth. The blackness didn’t stop at her mouth. The surrounding skin was infected by the color, and small, dark capillaries snaked into the sallow paleness of her cheeks. I shuddered as she snapped her teeth like some sort of dog. I stepped back. I knew I had to pull myself together, but I was frozen solid by the sight of that terrible mouth. A mouth filled with the promise of death.
She inched closer to me and I reeled back, feeling the energy inside me shying away, too. The energy was a living thing, after all, and all living things feared death. I stumbled down the curb and into the road without taking my eyes off her. She snapped her teeth again, and thick, black spittle sprayed from her mouth. Had she been trying to bite me through the sack back in the van? A vibration rippled through the power inside me, causing it to break into a thousand angry, frightened whispers. I tried to quell the chaos unfolding within me and swallowed hard, readying for her attack.
A second was all it took. She sprang forward so quickly that I only just had time to raise my arm and deflect her with a panicked burst of power. The energy shot out, a blast of blue-white light so bright it even burned my own retinas. Too much, I thought as my eyes refocused, sure I would find her very dead in the road.
I was wrong. I regained my bearings just in time to knock her back again as she flung herself at me like a rabid animal, snarling and snapping.
I’d never used my energy with such force, and yet she stood again, her head tilted to one side in that sinister, cold way. I raised both hands, ready to unleash everything I had on her, but as I took a deep breath she darted back behind the van, and then she was somehow on its roof. I ran around the other side of the vehicle, trying to get a clear shot at her, but she leapt through the air in one fluid movement and half-landed on the flat roof of the fire station. She hung from the ledge by her arms with her legs dangling into the void for a second before she scrabbled up, and then she was gone.
I stood there in the street gasping for breath, too stunned to do anything other than stare after her. My heart raced in my chest and a low, sinking feeling took hold within the pit of my stomach. I had never seen anything like her before, but I knew I’d seen her before.
I’d recognized the woman immediately, despite the grotesque changes to her face. I closed my eyes. How could this have happened? How they could have turned her into something so hideous?
The moonlight finally returned, slowly emerging from behind the clouds to illuminate me. There were only the shadows to keep me company in my confusion, and for a long time I could do nothing but stand there watching them stretch tall and long, staring into the dark. Staring after someone I’d never thought I would see again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Scrabble
