The Broken Ones (Book 3): The Broken City

by Jobe, David

  Julian shrugged. “I don’t think I have much of a choice.”

  “We all have choices.”

  “And what if he hurts someone else?” Julian held his head in his hands.

  “Do you think him having you means he’ll stop hurting people? Or that he’ll just find another way to hurt more people and be even harder to capture?” Father Holland sighed and laid his head against the pillow.

  “I can’t have another person hurt because of me. I’ll go, and I’ll end this.”

  Father Holland’s eyes went wide. “I’ve heard those words before, and the ending was far worse than you can imagine. You’re a great kid. Don’t go messing this up. Would your mom want that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. If I don’t do something, he may come after her or James.” Julian stood.

  “Was that your stepfather that attacked me?”

  Julian shook his head. “No, someone else that is hunting me.” He turned to look at Emilie. “You let me know if he needs anything.” He pulled one of his cards from his coat jacket. “Or if you need anything.”

  “Oh, he’s got his own cards now,” Father Holland laughed. “Nurse, we need to get something for this kid’s head! It’s swelling out of control!”

  “Anything,” Julian repeated, throwing Father Holland a glare. “You focus on getting healed up.”

  Emilie smiled. “Um, I need to get back to my car.”

  “Oh right.”

  “I’ll meet you outside. I’m going to check in with the ER here.”

  Julian said his goodbye and slipped out the door. As he did, one of the police officers pulled him aside.

  “I know you don’t know me from Adam, and right now the police don’t have a very good track record in some places, but I urge you to let us handle this. You’ve been given a great gift, and you’re using it in a far nobler pursuit than I think anyone else would have. You’re too valuable to the law enforcement and medical professionals out there risking their lives than you are chasing down some two-bit thug trying to start shit.”

  Julian nodded but didn’t say anything. He knew the police officer was trying to be nice, but Julian’s blood had begun to boil. He realized now he should have let the truck land on that monster.

  “Look. Just be careful. Don’t go looking for trouble, and if it finds you, call us. We’ll come running, sirens blazing. You hear me?”

  “I hear.”

  “And if you see this son of a bitch, you let me know. Father Holland has been my pastor since I was too young to drink the communion. Deal?” He offered his massive hand.

  “As long as you promise to keep watching out for him.” Julian shook the offered hand.

  “You don’t have to worry about that. Father Holland’s overseen half the force’s marriages and near as many divorce counselings. This guy had better hope he took off for parts unknown.” Anger shown in his eyes.

  “If he was smart.” Julian nodded to the officer and moved to make it for the parking lot. He would have to see if Mac had a gun he would loan him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Paying It Forward

  “Thank you, Mrs. Eldridge. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. No, mom is just fine. I was just playing a video game, and it made me curious about some of its storyline. You know how I have a hard time playing a game if they can’t be honest with the source material. Thanks again. Yes, I’ll let mom know you said hi, and I’ll stop by on Monday to discuss in better detail.” Drew set the phone into the cradle and stared at it for the moment. He wiped a tear from his eye and stood.

  He descended the stairs that led to his basement, which no longer held the irrational fear of monsters in hiding. His Knight stood in the corner closest to the stairs, keeping a watchful eye on the single occupant.

  Foxtrox sat on a makeshift cot, her ankle chained to the base of the water heater nearby. Drew wasn’t sure, but he suspected that if she tried to break the base, she would end up burning herself if not outright killing herself. She had her head down and sobbed into the pillow he had given her. It wasn’t the first time he had found her sobbing, but it was the first time he felt anything more than a casual interest in it.

  He plopped down into a ragged lazy boy he had set up just beyond the reach of the woman and her chain. “I spoke with the Intro to Psych Teacher at the high school, Mrs. Eldridge. She used to be a clinical psychologist for the state at one point, before she’d seen enough of the madness and decided to retire and teach. Really nice lady who goes out of her way for kids who show they are interested in learning. I suspect that as we speak, she’s killing her printer with article after article on the various ins and outs of multiple personality disorder.” He mentally told the Knight to fetch him a drink from the fridge and smiled as the Knight came to life and started walking up the stairs, his weight making the stairs groan in protest.

  “She explained to me that people with multiple personality disorder have a set of different people in their heads. Usually, they have different names, like Sally and Stormagedion, or some such, but they’re usually not aware the other personality exists. If they do, they fabricate a reason behind it. Sally is my friend, and she did all those horrible things to protect me.”

  Foxtrot sighed. “Are you getting to a point?”

  “They may even have a naming scheme that fits with the military alphabet. That part took me longer to decipher then I’d like to admit. Alpha, Echo, Delta and little Foxtrot, the youngest sister in a mind of psychopaths. I listened a bit before I kidnapped you, to what your sisters said back at the house before I blew it up. I get the vibe you were a reluctant participant in all of this. So, I want you to be honest with me when I ask you a question. Can you do that?”

  She shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Are you the version that shot the lawyer on the courthouse steps?”

  She shook her head. “That was Delta. The one you let die of starvation. In fact, most of the killing that we’ve done was her doing. She reveled in it.”

  Drew nodded, a sense of satisfaction falling over him. “And is Delta inside you now or Alpha?”

  Foxtrot gave a loud sob. “There is no Alpha. She died about ten minutes ago. I don’t know how you found her, but she hasn’t done any of what happened to you. She was an innocent.”

  Drew stared at her for a long moment. “That wasn’t me. I was still looking for her, but I had no idea where she was or what she was calling herself. How did she die, or do you know?”

  Foxtrot raised her eyes to stare at him. For a moment she seemed to consider him, maybe gauging if he was telling the truth. “All I know is that she wasn’t where she gave us the impression she was. She was being held against her will and didn’t want us to try to track her down. Someone with a gun just walked into her cell and shot her.” She gave another sob.

  “I’m sorry,” Drew said, and was surprised that he meant it. “I promise that wasn’t me, though I would have killed her had I found her before the phone call with the Psych teacher I was telling you about.”

  She shook her head. “Delta isn’t in me in the manner a split personality might be. I am me. The only way she can come into being is if I multiply, and I’m not sure that is even possible with Alpha gone. Part of me feels like I am just rendered fat held together by will.”

  Drew nodded. He hesitated and then asked, “If I let you go, would you promise never to bring Delta or any of them back?”

  “What?” She stared at him, mouth open.

  Drew gave a nervous laugh. “Last night some guy saved my life. Did so and nearly got his head taken off in the process. When I asked for a chance to repay him, he told me to pay it forward. Do you know what that means?”

  She shook her head, staring down at the shackle on her ankle.

  “I only heard about it when Dad took me to Starbucks one day. The lady in front of us had paid for a coffee for my dad. The idea was that you do a kindness for a stranger, and that stranger, in turn, is obligated to do the same for
another stranger. At the time, I thought it was hippie claptrap, but man did my dad get a kick out of it. Thought that it was the key to bring the world back from the brink. I sat up all night thinking about it. I managed to avenge his death, so now I could be free to make his life have a greater meaning. And I owed a debt. A pretty big one. I mean, I can’t go buying someone a venti mocha frap with no whip and consider it a repayment for my life. How many stupid orders of coffee would I have to pay for to settle that debt? No, I’d have to save a life to repay that debt. And well, I just so happen to have a life held in my hands.”

  “Staying your hand is really not saving a life. You know that, right?”

  Drew laughed. “Work with me here. I am trying to be magnanimous, and you’re digging a hole. Is that the direction you want to go?”

  “Fine. If you set me free, you repay your debt.”

  “First, I need you to promise me that you’ll not bring about that fiend you’ve gotten locked away inside you.”

  She stared at him again. “How do I know you aren’t just playing a sick joke? You let me leave, just so that,” she motioned to the Knight as it returned with soda in hand. “That you won’t have that thing snap my neck on the lawn or something?”

  Drew took the offered can. “Because if I wanted to do that, I’d make you suffer more. Do you want this deal or not?”

  She sighed, shoulders slumping. “Fine. You set me free, and I won’t let any of them come back. I’ll go and live my life as a normal person. You have my word.”

  Drew set his drink aside and rose. He walked the length of the space between them with cautious steps. Kneeling down her unlocked her ankle and stepped back. “If I see a story about someone doing some heinous shit then turning into goo, I’ll come looking for you.”

  She rubbed her ankle. “Yeah, that was kind of implied. Am I free to go?”

  Drew shook his head. He pulled a blindfold from his pocket and handed it to her. “You are in my home. I’d rather you not know where that is. I’ll have him take you to the rest stop where we used to meet then let you go.” He offered her a wad of folded money. “This will pay for a taxi to anywhere in the city you want to go.”

  She took the money and pocketed it. She hesitated before accepting the blindfold, then with a resigned sigh, slipped it over her eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Drew instructed the Knight to scoop her up and do as he said. Without a word the Knight complied, vanishing up the stairs with the woman cradled in its arms. Drew waited a while after he heard the front door close and the van drive away before he ascended the stairs. His mind raced at what Foxtrot had said.

  He flopped down in his father’s chair and stared at his reflection in the blank television for a while. She had been right. Staying his hand didn’t equate to saving a life. If that were true, his father could have argued in court, ‘Your honor, sure, my client may have killed two people, but think of all the people he could have killed but decided not to. My client is a hero.’ That kind of defense would have got him laughed out of the courtroom. “I still need to save someone,” he told an empty house.

  He thought of the man that had saved him. Maybe he could still repay that stranger too. He sat back in the chair, relaxing himself, and focused his attention on the small figurine he had given the man. He had discovered in his book that if he marked the figure properly, he could home in on it later and use it just as he did his others. His mind sought out the small replica of the knight.

  He was staring into the gloom of a shadowy room. Two figures, naked but mostly under sheets lay together, talking in soft voices.

  “Did you have another vision?” It was the woman speaking to his savior. She ran a slender finger over his chest.

  “I tried not to, but I did,” his Savior said.

  “Tried not to?” The woman asked.

  “Yeah. With the drugs, the visions stole their effects, giving me nightmares with less and less of a high. After a while, it didn’t matter how much I might take, I never got high. I don’t want to lose the joy in what we have.”

  She gave him a long wet kiss, and the pulled back with a soft giggle. “That’s the sweetest thing I have ever heard. Trust me, Chris. This won’t quit.” She made a motion that made Drew blush back home. “What did you see this time? The hill again? Was the flying kid still trying to kill everyone?”

  Chris, the Savior, shook his head. “No. This time I was in some hotel room. Trip was there, but he was dead. He wouldn’t talk to me, though his corpse did mope around the room like an angst-ridden teenager. I looked around the room trying to figure out what had happened and how I could fix it. I found that he had a vial of blood with my name on it, though it looks like it had been emptied. All around the room was an orgy of evidence that the kid had tried every drug known to man.”

  “He drank it and tried to get visions like you, didn’t he?”

  Chris nodded. “Yeah, that’s the conclusion I came to as well. I couldn’t find anything with a date on it, so I went outside to see if I recognized the area at least. Maybe find a newspaper stand nearby. I saw the skyline of a city I didn’t recognize. I don’t think he’s in Indianapolis anymore, but he’s in a big city somewhere.”

  “Did you find a newspaper?”

  He shook his head again. “No. The moment I stepped out of the room to go looking, Trip stabbed me in the back, and I woke up.”

  The woman sighed. “So, are you going to look for him, instead of killing the kid?”

  Chris sat up, leaning against a faded wooden headboard. “I don’t know. I get the feeling that this happens after the boy, but that doesn’t make sense. How could there be this outcome, if I haven’t stopped the first? If Mac destroyed the world in his rage, how can Trip be alive to overdose on a cocktail of my blood and a medley of drugs?’

  “Could you have possibly already altered that outcome?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t see how. I haven’t done anything that would account for it. Maybe it is just telling me that if I do succeed in this, that my next step should be finding Trip.”

  “Then we better prepare. But first,” the woman straddled Chris.

  Drew got out of there immediately, returning to his own mind. He didn’t know how he felt about any of what he saw. Well, except for the part he shouldn’t have seen any more of. If Chris was going to kill Mac to save the world, maybe Drew could do it instead. After all, he would be saving the world. That would be a legacy worthy of his father. Then Chris could go save this Trip person. Chris had said something about a hill and a kid who could fly named Mac. That had to be Machiavelli Patton, and after the incident on the freeway, Drew had done some looking into the man. The “hero” lived on a fancy hill.

  Drew would just have to make a house-call.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Life Imitates Art

  The cartoonish character of the protagonist, covered in blood and panting, moved with quiet steps through some dark and dingy hallway of a long-abandoned asylum. All around him, through the 5.1 surround sound system, Brian can hear the laments of long abandoned people, left to die alone in their hospital rooms. From the right, he heard a high-pitched wail that gave Brian such a start that he paused the game. Normally, he wouldn’t be phased by creepy horror games, but then again, he’s never played on such a high definition television, or with such high-quality surround sound. Plus, if he were honest with himself, the game he was playing had some striking parallels to his own current predicament.

  He stared at the frozen figure of his character, trying to steel himself to press on in the winding game when the wail sounded again. Startled now, his heart pounding, he looked at the tv, suspecting the designers might have known this would scare people and would add something to the pause screen to mess with the player. Only, he couldn’t bring himself to believe the scream he heard was actually in the game.

  The door to his room slid open. Nurse Lindell crept into the room, pressing the button to close the door now, instead of
waiting for it to shut automatically.

  She rushed over to him and grabbed his arm. “The soldiers are killing everyone. They’re going from room to room shooting anything that moves. They’re just down the hall and will be here any m-”

  The door behind her slid open, and a man in military fatigues stepped in, gun raised.

  Nurse Lindell yelped and dove behind the bed as a bullet exploded the bedding where her head had vanished.

  Brian stepped in to stand between the soldier and his intended target. The soldier seemed to be glossy eyed, his hollow gaze shifting to Brian. The gun swung toward him, and the muzzle flashed a second time. Brian felt the bullet slam into his chest, right where his heart was located. Brian grunted and then smacked the man’s outstretched gun hand. The gun clattered against the wall before falling behind one of the speakers. The hand that had held the gun hung limply from the outstretched arm. The soldier seemed unconcerned with what was no doubt a broken wrist. He used his other hand to pull a second sidearm, moving to shoot Brian in the face, but Brian struck him in the chest hard enough to cave it in before launching the man into the door he had just come through. Blood dripped from Brian’s hand as he stared at the body of the soldier. “Sorry,” he said.