The Broken Ones (Book 3): The Broken City
Page 25
Rebecca shivered. She shook her head. “I’m not doing this. They won’t go away. I tried.”
Allison laughed, hers darker and deeper than the delivery man.
The delivery man nodded. “It’s you, but not. I think they’re here,” again he motioned at the grisly ornaments, “because a part of you wants them here. Don’t worry, the effects of the mushrooms will wear off in four to six hours.”
“Four to six hours?!” Rebecca trembled. “I can’t. I can’t. Not with them.” She waived her knife at the dangling bodies.
The delivery man shrugged and stood up. “Can’t do the time, and all that.” He turned to Allison. “Let’s go.”
Allison nodded but glared at Rebecca. “We should just kill her.”
The delivery man shook his head. “No. Besides, look at her face. I don’t think she is ever going to be using her parlor tricks like this again.”
Allison waved her hand at the corpses. “Look at all of them. Do you see how many she has?”
The delivery man nodded, sadness in his eyes. “Twenty-two. Twenty-three with the blood-soaked one.”
“She tried to make me twenty-four. An even two dozen, Grimm.” Allison crossed her arms.
“This is her warning shot. Next time. Now come on, let’s go before we get noticed.” He moved toward the door opening it for Allison.
Allison threw Rebecca one more hateful glare before stomping out of the house.
The delivery man gave Rebecca a nod before easing the door closed. The locks began to re-engage in loud soul-crushing clicks. Between them, Rebecca could hear the low squish of wet feet advancing on her. After the fourth deadbolt clicked into place, Robert appeared around the corner of the wall, his arms outstretched toward her.
The corpses in the living room began to move, swaying from side to side as if trying to disengage from the roof. The low squeak of the makeshift nooses mixed with the groan of the rafters, under the weight of all those bodies, began to get loud as the corpses did a terrible dance, swinging and rotating in dizzying patterns.
“STOP!” Rebecca put her hands to her ears, but she couldn’t block out the noise. It kept growing louder until she couldn’t hear her own rapid breaths anymore, just the chorus of corpses. She looked up and found Robert leaning over her, one hand outstretched. She tried to push herself further back into the corner, but her body was as deep in as it could go.
Robert’s hand closed over her fist not holding the knife, his skin cold and wet. He pulled it out toward him; exposing her wrist upwards.
“Make them stop,” she pleaded with Robert. Tears rolled down her face.
He gave her a sad smile and motioned with his other hand toward the knife hand. He then used his free hand to draw a line across her wrist at a diagonal, matching the one she could see just below hers on his own arm. She shook her head.
He gestured to the corpses behind him as if to say, “they won’t stop.”
She shook her head again, but her other hand came down from her ear and placed the blade edge over the line in her skin he had indicated. “Make them stop.”
Robert placed his other hand on her knife hand and pressed down just a little. Not enough to break the skin, but to make the edges white around the sides. He nodded at her.
Rebecca nodded and pressed harder, sliding the edge toward her as she did.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Not the Same
Mac sat at his table, leaning over the contents of a smartwatch, a penlight sticking out the side of his mouth. “Come on,” he muttered through teeth clenched around the light. He prodded at the exposed wiring with a soldering iron. A thin waft of smoke rose from the device, followed by the scent of burning wires. It blinked to life before shutting down again. Mac nodded and began pulling more wire from a box of tools at his side.
Lanton stepped into the room from the kitchen, a large mug of what smelled like fresh coffee before him. “You got that done yet?” He sat down at the other end of the table, firing up the laptop that sat there.
Allison looked up from her crossword, sitting to the right of Mac. “How are you feeling, Lanton?”
Lanton raised his cup to her. “Much better. I guess I just needed a nice long nap.” Lanton had been out for 24 hours after Allison had jabbed him. Several people in the room laughed. “Seriously though. If any of you are suffering from depression or suicidal ideation, seek help. If you have a power, it might be connected to that and the anti-serum-”
“The Coroner’s Happy Juice,” Grimm corrected from the couch.
“I’m not calling it that,” Lanton said.
Asimov floated into the room from the entrance way into the foyer. “Sir, you have a guest.”
Brian stepped into the room, a broad smile on his face. “Hello.”
Lanton stood up so fast that the chair fell backward with a crash. “You’re alive?” He marched across the room to stand before Brian. Lanton seemed to gaze from one eye to the other. Mac could see that the eyes no longer matched in color.
Brian nodded and offered his hand. “A long messed up story I will share with all of you.” His gaze fell to James and Jessica playing in the corner, Jessica holding her blue bear while trying to decide which chess piece to move. “Where’s Miss Lindell.”
Jessica turned her face to look at Brian and gave a pouting face. “She’s in time out.”
“She kept trying to kill me,” Mac said.
“Why?” Brian crossed his powerful arms.
“She blames him for all the bad stuff that has gone down. Said his dad was the source of all strife and that lays the blame on his head as well.” Allison shook her head, eyes downcast.
“Is she here?”
Mac nodded and rose. He offered his hand to Brian. “I never got to thank you for saving my life. I owe you a debt I can’t repay.”
Brian shook the offered hand. “I’m glad you’re okay. About your father. You and I need to have a long talk. But first, can you take me to Miss Lindell?”
Mac gestured for Brian to follow and lead him deeper into the house. “I put her in the panic room. I still have no idea how to help her. Each time I try to talk reason to her, she just loses it on me.” His shoulders slumped. “I find out I have more family, and one of them absolutely hates me.”
Brian clasped him on the shoulder. “Your dad’s a piece of work my friend. But, you and he are like night and day. Let me talk to her.”
Mac pressed a code into the keypad, and the nearby bookshelf slid aside. I’ll stand here in case you need help. She’s quite fast.”
Brian stepped into the room. Miss Lindell sat in a recliner looking at the wall, her back to them. “Miss Lindell?”
She turned to regard him, her face breaking into a smile. “Brian!” She rose and went to hug him. “I’m sorry I left you, but I was so worried for my daughter.”
Brian hugged her back and smiled. “She is quite adorable.”
“They’ve let you see her?” She glared at Mac over Brian’s shoulder. “They won’t let me see her.”
Brian stepped back, placing hands on her cheek. “She’s in the other room playing with another kid. Chess I think. She’s doing fine. They tell me that you keep trying to kill Mac?”
She spat at their feet. “He is his father’s spawn.”
Brian shook his head. “So is your daughter. I know you have been locked up in his lab since she was born, maybe longer, so you don’t know about Mac like the rest of the world does.” He pulled out his cell phone and started navigating it. After a moment Mac could hear a pharmaceutical ad play before a YouTube video started. “Mac is the one that made me want to be a hero. I was watching his brave actions to save lives when I decided to try and help people. I told you about how I accidentally killed two people. Mac here, later came to try and save me and in the process almost died.” The video gave off a loud crack that Mac knew was the sound of the rifle going off. Followed by Allison’s scream that had been captured on a few different cameras. “His dad may b
e a monster, but Mac isn’t. Mac has been trying to use his power with his friends to save lives.” He pushed another button on his screen. The phone began to play a clip of the night they had arrested the Trucker trying to abduct Julian. “The night we escaped, Mac and his team helped foil one of his father’s henchmen from abducting a man that has been using his powers to save lives as well. He’s one of the good people, Miss Lindell. He’s just like Jessica. Good, but with ties to a bad man.”
Miss Lindell looked from Brian to Mac, then to the phone displayed before her. She held the phone for a bit, listening to the reporter go over how Mac and Allison had teamed up with Detective Lanton to be a Junior Support team for the Altered Enforcement team. The reporter explained how they were using Mac’s newest tech to help reduce crime and to at the same time keep officers on the thin blue line. How the new floating cameras were working wonders on improving relations between police and a disenfranchised part of the city. She handed the phone back to Brian. “You’re helping people?” She looked at Mac, her eyes still narrowed.
Mac sighed. “I’m nothing like my father. A fact he takes great pleasure in pointing out on the very few times he chooses to show up. To me, that little girl in there is more family to me than he is.” He smiled, “you know she saved my life? She used that little trick you and her have to turn into Flabasham and stop a killer from shooting me in my hospital bed.”
Miss Lindell placed a hand over her heart. “You know about Flabasham?”
Mac laughed. “She insists that I read her Monsters are Ticklish Too every night before she goes to sleep. I ordered her a new copy, but she refuses to use any one but that one.”
Miss Lindell let out a horrible sob. “I gave it to her. You have no idea what she and I went through with your father.”
“I have an idea. Am I okay to let you out now? We can go see Jessica.”
Miss Lindell stood perfectly still for a moment. She nodded.
Brian looked to Mac offering his own nod.
Mac stepped back, still unsure. After a couple of seconds, he moved to lead the way back to the living room. When they arrived, Jessica shot across the room at full sprint into her mother’s arms. “You’re out of time out!”
Miss Lindell laughed and looked at Mac. “Yes, Mommy is out of time out. I just needed to do like I always tell you, and judge people on an individual basis.” Something in her eyes made Mac feel as if she still wasn’t sold on it.
But, she wasn’t shapeshifting into her murder form, so Mac took it as a win.
“Come meet James. He’s teaching me how to play chess.” Jessica led Miss Lindell over to the corner where they were playing.
Allison smiled at Mac, with tears in her eyes.
From a nearby empty corner, Julian stepped into existence. “Hey everyone.”
Brian turned to see the new arrival. “Hey, it’s teleporty guy!”
Julian tilted his head. “Hey, it’s lifty guy!”
They both laughed.
Brian stepped forward, offering his hand. “Brian.”
Julian shook the offered hand. “Julian. Glad to see you aren’t dead.”
“Me too.”
Miss Millie stepped into the room, another tray of cookies in her hand. “Hey, teleporty guy,” she gave a wicked smirk. “How’s your mom and Dance?”
Julian gave a chuckle. “Better. They’re still in ICU, but the doctors think they stopped all the internal bleeding. So, now they just have to keep up the good fight.”
Miss Lindell moved to stand next to Mac. In her hand, she offered four vials full of a murky grey liquid. “I stole these from your father’s lab. They are a serum he uses to heal people. Half of one should be enough for a single person.”
Mac blinked, looking down at the familiar vial. If half worked, why had his father used a whole canister? “I am familiar with them.” He took them and offered one to Julian. “Tell the nurse to inject half of one of these into the IV. It’s the reason I’m walking today.”
Julian stared at the vial, then looked at him. “For real?”
Mac nodded. “I’ll work on synthesizing the rest, but your mom and friend need it now.”
Julian took the vial and vanished.
Mac turned to Miss Lindell. “Thank you. That was the man Brian was talking about. He works with Emergency Services to get high-risk patients to hospitals without the danger of a long ride in an ambulance or a helicopter.”
Miss Lindell smiled. “Then he deserves it most of all.”
Julian appeared a few moments later. “The cops, er, sorry, police, are still guarding them.” He gave Lanton an apologetic nod. “So I grabbed Emilie from her hospital and asked her to do it.”
“Emilie?” Miss Millie asked.
He laughed. “Paramedic from a state away. Was the one who rushed me from the church I landed in when I first teleported to the hospital. Also, the one who came to tell me that Father Holland had been attacked.”
“I’d like to meet her.” Miss Millie gave a soft smile.
Julian paused. “Um, sure. I guess.” He turned to Mac, the look on his face reading confusion. He shook it off and smiled at Mac. “I can’t thank either of you enough. But, that wasn’t why I came here, obviously. Have any of you seen the news today?”
Everyone shook their heads. Grimm grabbed the remote and turned on the television. “What channel?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Julian said.
The television flared to life, and the face of Jesuit Patton appeared. He appeared to be in the middle of a press conference. “Yes. It does appear that one of my clinical technicians grew frustrated when we were delayed in testing our new cancer treatment drug. So, he broke into a local bottling company and contaminated some supplies of their energy drink. The bottling company has been notified, and we are working to sanitize the whole location. My company Patton Inc will be footing the bill. Additionally, we’re working towards a cure for the affliction. I’ll be opening my Northeast Location on Saturday between noon and five to anyone looking to have their affliction reversed. Additionally, anyone who is afflicted, but wishes to register with us may do so. My plan is to fairly compensate everyone who was harmed by my employee’s rash actions. Please come down to the site listed below between noon and five. We will be taking information and a blood sample to authenticate affliction.”
“He’s setting them up,” Miss Lindell said. “He doesn’t know I saw it, but he had a contingency plan in place, in case things went bad. This was it. He’ll have all those poor people show up, looking for a cure and or the money. Then he will stage a hate group to show up. With instigators, he’ll turn that parking lot into a bloodbath. Then he’ll have all the fresh new samples he needs, and a platform to put himself at the forefront for the rights of those with powers.” She turned to Mac. “A lot of people will die, and it’ll create political ripples that will tear this city and maybe others apart. You have to stop him.”
Mac opened his mouth to say something, but it was Lanton who spoke first. “We will. Looks like we have just a few days to prepare. We better get on it.”
Grimm groaned. “I’m the only one here without any powers.”
Lanton smiled. “About that.”
Grimm grinned. “I knew it! Carrie Anne told me which drinks were affected. I’ve got two 24 packs at my house still. I piss energy drinks these days. Oh, and I think Carrie Anne likes me.”
Lanton shook his head. “You told me that she creeps you out.”
“I know, right? It makes it more dangerous and thrilling. Will I be the next corpse she stands over? The hottest ones are always the craziest ones.” He shook with laughter as all the women in the room glared at him. “Just a theory. I need to run more tests.”
Miss Lindell turned to Mac. “Rebecca and I need to leave here. Your father may not know love, but he doesn’t take well to having his possessions stolen, or running away from him. He’ll look here first. We can’t be here when he shows up.”
Miss Millie stepped up. “
You two are welcome to come stay with me until we get this all sorted out. It doesn’t have a panic room, but it does have a security guard.”
Lanton placed a hand on Miss Millie’s shoulder. “You should stay with them too. I’ll have a couple patrols stationed there as well. Just in case.”
Mac clapped his hands together. “Let’s get to work.”