“You’re really not helping,” Kelly replied. “I hate those things. Rabies and all. Ugh!”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Off the top of my head, I’d say rabies are the least of our worries right now.”
CHAPTER 12
Vincent was right. A fence, its bottom obscured by trash and weeds, sat on the other end of the lot. It was a matter of seconds for us to hop over it.
Throughout it all, I couldn’t help but get a sense of being watched, but dismissed it as little more than paranoia.
Thankfully, by the time we climbed over the fence, finding ourselves in a small but neat backyard, the gunfire had mostly tapered off. Though there was no indication that our side had won, I nevertheless felt better. That familiar supernatural confidence once more began to wake up inside of me and push its way to the forefront.
Before us was a row of tightly packed houses, so close that I could imagine neighbors opening a window to request a cup of sugar and being handed it without either leaving their own home.
♦ ♦ ♦
The firefight we’d run from could have woken the dead, but here, things were eerily quiet. Strange that it should be so peaceful. Under different circumstances I might attribute it to the early hour. I let my mind wander for a moment back to my old life. Though I’d originally moved – or fled, if one wanted to be truthful – to New York in the hope of losing myself in the bustle of the big city, it hadn’t been a bad life. I’d gotten a good job, found a decent apartment, and had actually enjoyed the routine of it all. Just a year ago, I’d have been rolling over in my bed right about now, taking a look at the clock and debating whether I could sleep for five more minutes. More often than not, I didn’t, but there’d been a comforting normalcy to it all.
I missed that.
For a time, that simple life had been enough. I’d been content if not entirely happy. But then, one day, I wasn’t.
“I believe in you. I believe you can do better.”
Those words, I’d needed to hear them at the time. I’d needed someone to tell me that there was more to life than the little shell of an existence I’d built up. How was I to know that he’d also damned me?
There was a mix of both love and hate in that memory. At times, I wasn’t sure which was stronger.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Are you okay?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if you were okay,” Kelly repeated as Vincent scouted the block ahead.
My pulse quickened, but I kept my voice neutral. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Back there,” she said. “When those pigs opened fire on us. At first you were like a fucking spotlight. I half expected the Bat-Signal to appear above you. Then all of a sudden, it was like your batteries ran dry. I thought for sure they were gonna plug you.”
Now was not the time for longwinded explanations. Also, I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to spill my guts to anyone, much less a girl I’d only met the day before. “Thank you,” I said, evading her question. “There’s not many who would do something like that.”
“You mean not many in the supernatural community who would put their ass on the line for the Icon?”
I let out a quiet chuckle. “No. There’s not many people period who would step in front of a firing squad for another person, especially a veritable stranger. That took guts.”
“And a complete lack of forethought.”
We both laughed, the sound of it quite loud now that things had quieted down again. Regardless, I think we both needed it.
“I hope that wasn’t at my expense,” Vincent said, returning to us.
“Don’t worry, there’s bound to be plenty of opportunities,” Kelly replied.
He looked for a moment as if he were unsure as to how to answer. Finally, he allowed the ghost of a smile to cross his face and nodded. Thank goodness for small miracles. Now was really not the time to toe the party line.
“How’s it look?” I asked.
“Clear for the moment. I suggest we put some distance between us and them for now.”
“What about the others?”
“My brothers can take care of themselves.” He turned to Kelly. “I trust the same can be said of ... your sisters.”
“It’ll take more than some trigger-happy baboons in uniform to stop Meg.” Though her voice was steady, I could see the worry in her eyes.
“They’ll be okay,” I said.
“Have faith,” he added. “We were bound to face tribulations. This is but one. Ours is a righteous mission and we will prevail.”
I quickly changed the subject before we got mired down in dogma again. “Aside from not being riddled with bullet holes, how are we looking? Supplies, I mean.”
“Not great,” Kelly said, sounding annoyed. “I dropped Skull Smasher back when you told us to dump our weapons.”
“Skull Smasher?”
“My mace,” she explained. “All good weapons have a name. That’s just the way it works. Don’t judge me.”
I considered that. I had only ever referred to my sword as just that. Maybe it was for the best, though. I was missing its comforting feel. I was certain that would only be made worse if I started naming it like a pet.
“Oh yeah,” she continued, “I still have a couple of chocolate bars in my jacket pocket.”
“Beats me,” I replied. “Right now I have pants, shoes, and a sweater to my name.”
“No underwear?” she asked. “Kinky.”
“Of course I’m wearing...” I sputtered, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. I quickly glanced at Vincent, who’d had the good graces to turn away and pretend he was coughing on dust. “How about you?”
He turned back to us, all business again. “My crucifix, a blessed rosary ... and this.” He unclipped a walkie talkie from his side.
I could have whooped in joy.
“I am definitely sharing my Kit Kats with you,” Kelly said.
“Have you used it to...”
“Not yet, Blessed One. I’d suggest we wait to check in, no less than a half hour. That’s standard protocol in situations such as this. If those bedeviled fiends are searching for our allies, it would be wise to not give them away.”
“Or us,” I added, seeing the wisdom in his words. “All right. Let’s get moving. We should find a place to lay low before someone spots us.”
Unfortunately, my timing was impeccable for just as I started to walk, a flashlight beam cut through the darkness and shone upon us.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Who are you?”
I couldn’t see anything save a dark silhouette behind the beam of light. Thus I had no way of knowing how many there were or whether they were armed. However, that we’d been asked a question as opposed to immediately shot was a considerable improvement over our last encounter.
I took a slow step to the forefront of our trio. The fear inside of me reared up for a moment before being replaced by the cold certainty of my station. Mine wasn’t the only life at stake here and my power could, at a moment’s notice, protect my allies as surely as it could myself.
“That’s far enough,” the voice, a male with a distinctly non-Bostonian accent, said.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” I replied.
“Considering I’m the one with the Winchester, I should think not.”
I swallowed hard, imagining the unseen barrel of the gun pointed my way. I got a mental flash of the owner giving one cruel smile before pulling the trigger and sending me into that awful darkness again. Maybe this time there would be no escape.
“What are yuh doing snooping around back here?” he asked, dragging me back to the present. "Those gunshots, were those you?”
“We didn’t start it.”
“Didn’t ask that. I saw the lights. Were they shooting at you, or the other way around?”
“We’re not criminals,” Kelly said.
“Missy, the jails are full of people who say the same thing. Or at least they used to be. Not so sure anymo
re.” The owner of the voice let out a gruff laugh, the light wavering ever so slightly. I considered letting my power flare to life, taking advantage of the momentary distraction and disarming our would-be attacker, but something in his voice made me reconsider. “As for those fuckers, well, they ain’t police ... at least not real police. No familiar faces in the bunch, and I don’t know whose laws they’re following, but it ain’t the law of the land, that I can tell yuh.”
“There’s something very wrong in this town,” I said carefully.
“You don’t need to tell me that, girl. I got eyes. So, what’s that all got to do with you anyway?”
“We’re here to stop it.”
The flashlight was turned off and more laughter ensued.
It took my eyes a moment to adjust to not being dazzled, but when they did, I saw an older man with dark skin and a receding patch of white hair on his head standing in front of us, rifle in one hand, but the barrel thankfully pointed at the ground.
“You’ll excuse me for saying this,” he said at last, getting his laughter under control, “but so far you’re doing a shit job of it.”
CHAPTER 13
“Can I get you anything else?”
“No, thank you,” Vincent replied, taking a sip from the mug of steaming hot chocolate. “You’ve been far too kind already.”
“I’ll say,” Kelly added from her spot in an old, but comfortable looking recliner. “This stuff is awesome.”
“That’s ’cause I use real chocolate,” Jacob, our host, replied. “None of that powdered shit. Although, it’s getting harder and harder to find. Beginning to feel like this is less Boston and more Soviet Russia.”
I had to agree, at least on that former note. The hot chocolate really was good. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a social call, and we couldn’t afford the time. “Thank you for taking us in off the street, but we really need to...”
“Yeah yeah, I heard you,” he replied, sitting in an easy chair. “Just settle down a bit. No good can come of running off half-cocked.”
We were twenty minutes into Vincent’s advised half hour of radio silence and while I was still antsy, Jacob had done a lot to make us feel at ease.
According to him, he’d once owned a small farm down in South Carolina, but as he’d gotten older, it had become too much of a chore to run. Last year, at his daughter’s insistence, he’d sold it and come up to Boston to live with her. That had been before things had started to get weird. Since then, they’d been trying to live their lives as best they could, but it was getting harder and harder.
Though it wasn’t outright said, it seemed that a martial law of sorts had been put in effect. People had gone missing. Others had seemed to change. What had once been a close knit neighborhood was now filled with suspicion and doubt. Though people sometimes still went about their business during the day, there was an undercurrent of wrongness to it all. Come night, however, shades were drawn and people hunkered down with their own.
The strange behavior of the police only got worse after dark. It seemed the setting of the sun triggered an onset of violence. Gunshots in the night became common as well as other sounds, things that couldn’t be easily explained. When that occurred, people would retreat behind locked doors and wait, hoping it passed them by until the sun rose again.
I considered this. Though we hadn’t gotten close enough to know for certain, it was quite possible those police had actually been vampires. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Many preferred to use their superior physical abilities, but they weren’t averse to using modern firepower if the need called for it. Remington had been all the proof of that I needed.
“Where’s your daughter now?” Kelly asked, eyeing the many photographs on the mantle of the cozy living room, visible in the light of an old oil lamp that provided the only illumination. “Is she here?”
“Not right now. She’s fetching help,” Jacob said. “She’ll be back soon.”
“Help?” I asked. A quick glance passed between me, Kelly, and Vincent. It didn’t go unnoticed.
“Relax,” Jacob replied. “There’s still good people in this town even if everything is going to Hell. My girl, Cynthia, she got sick a month back. Was real bad and I couldn’t get enough meds from the pharmacy. Bastards were charging ten times the price they should have. But as I said, there’s good people here ... friends. They helped us. Got my Cindy back on her feet. That’s how things go when you can’t rely on the government or police no more. Even though things are bad, people are still good. They help us. We help them. And I think they’ll help you. Worst case, they know this town better than you. Can get you out of this neighborhood and back to your friends without being seen.”
That sounded good to me. Aside from some assurances that a few vampire covens in the area still opposed Vehron’s reign – assurances that neither myself nor the Templar were overly inclined to rely on – we’d gotten very little in the way of inside information. According to Bill and his friends, Boston was under tight lockdown. Bernadette had come to a similar conclusion. Though the Templar didn’t have a large presence in this city, there had still been a small chapter of brothers. However, they hadn’t been heard from in months.
If what Jacob was saying was true, there was an underground of sorts made up of normal people who were forced to step up under extraordinary circumstances. That didn’t seem too far-fetched to me. Throughout history such things were common whenever a land was occupied by a hostile force.
I had no way of knowing if these people could be trusted, nor did I know the extent of their knowledge of the situation. Realizing things were somehow off wasn’t the same as accepting that your city was currently enslaved by a two-thousand year old warlord and his undead minions.
If they could help us reestablish contact with our friends as well as point out a safe route through the city, then that would be great. However, I wouldn’t ask any more than that. The Templar knew what they were getting into. That didn’t make a single one of their deaths any more acceptable, but at least their eyes were open. They knew the choice they were making.
Whether or not this underground could help us, it needed to be done quickly. Time was ticking away and soon we wouldn’t have the cover of darkness to rely on. Despite Jacob’s musings on things being more normal in the daylight, I had no way of confirming that. There was only one thing I was certain of – come the sunrise, our chances of another encounter with the undead would be greatly reduced.
I rolled back the sleeve on my sweater and glanced down at my wrist.
“That one of them new smart watches people were crowing about?” Jacob asked. “Didn’t realize folks still cared about those. Seems a needless luxury in these times.”
“Huh?” I asked and then realized what he was talking about. My watch had started glowing ever so slightly as my hand brushed against it, plainly visible in the dim light of the room. It was one of the reasons why I’d stopped wearing jewelry, aside from the fact that it got in the way during a fight. Items I was in contact with regularly, especially those of a conductive nature, seemed to pick up a bit of a residual charge of faith magic from me. It was kind of like how a piece of metal could become magnetized by touching another magnet, although I had no real way of knowing if it remotely worked the same way.
“It was a gift.” Then, remembering the distinctly not normal glow about it, I added, “Silly, I know, but I try to charge it when I can.” At least that first part was true. Though the watch was a simple analog model, it had been a gift from my mother a few years back. I quickly rolled my sleeve back down. I’d need to be more careful in the future. “Anyway, it’s about time for us to see if we can reach our friends.”
“My daughter will be back any minute, then you can all go look together.” Jacob got up and began to shuffle back to the kitchen. “In the meantime, I’ll see if maybe I can fix up some snacks for the road for you all.”
“You’ve done more than enough already,” I said.
&nb
sp; “Although, we’ll be happy to accept any help we can get,” Kelly added.
I glanced at her and she mouthed, “What?” I couldn’t help but grin in return before turning to Vincent and nodding.
He stood, unclipped the radio from his belt, and raised it to his lips. That’s as far as he got before he paused, his eyes opening wide. “What are you doing?”
I turned to follow his gaze and saw Jacob standing in the doorway, once more holding his gun on us. “Sorry to say, but I can’t let you do that.”
Before any of us could do much more than gape, he squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER 14
I didn’t think. No, thinking would have been bad. With thought came memories, ones that would have frozen me in place had I been given another second to ponder our situation.
Thankfully, becoming an Icon meant becoming a creature of instinct. My powers flared to life in the moment that Jacob fired the weapon. A roar of deafening sound filled the room, but a brilliant white light rose up in defiance to meet its challenge.
Fast as my power was, though, it wasn’t the deciding factor in determining Vincent’s fate. My aura flared out and melted the slug mid-air – a sizzling flash of vapor appeared roughly halfway between Vincent and Kelly. Either Jacob was a crap shot, or he hadn’t been aiming to kill.
Nevertheless, I heard the Templar cry out, albeit seemingly more in anger than pain.
For a moment, the roar of the gun continued to echo before I was finally able to hear the breath that had caught in my throat. I quickly turned my head, but Vincent appeared unhurt. The radio, however, was lying on the hardwood floor.
“Damn me,” Vincent whispered.
Kelly was slightly less magnanimous with her words. “What the ever-flying fuck, asshole?!” she shouted at our less than gracious host.
Jacob, for his part, coolly worked the lever on his rifle, chambering another round. “I’d ask you to mind your manners in my house.” He then turned to me. “I knew it. You’re her. The second I shined my light on you and saw them freaky white eyes, I said to myself ‘you done caught yourself a prize trout tonight, old man.’”
Shining Fury: from the Tome of Bill Series Page 6