The Regent

by Marcus Richardson

  “Point is, we took to the tunnels after we escaped the guys on the surface. But only for a little while—they got reinforcements and chased us down there. We lost a couple good people in the dark.” Cooper didn’t seriously think 13 met her fate down there…he would bet money that whoever the hell had been tracking them would never leave those fucking tunnels, but he left that part out.

  “We’ll come back to that bit. Those tunnels were cleared just yesterday.”

  “Well,” Cooper said, turning his face to show the raking cuts on his cheek from the homeless man. “There’s some pissed-off homeless people down there.”

  “Blimey…” breathed the castellan. “Are those…?”

  “Fingernails. Yeah. It’s fuckin’ great.”

  The castellan snapped his fingers and motioned for the medic to attend to Cooper. He whistled when he moved over and got a closer look at his new patient.

  “What the hell happened up top? When we came out on the street, the cops were all…I don’t know—” Cooper winced. “Damn, what are you pouring in there, acid?”

  “Relax, mate—just some hydro.”

  “What?” asked Cooper.

  “See?” said Eli. “It’s not English.”

  “Hydrogen peroxide,” said the medic, over-enunciating his words. “Bloody Yanks,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Last we heard, there was some sort of chemical attack. Started down by the SNP,” said the castellan, wiping the sweat from his head.

  Cooper frowned. “Were they going after you there?” he asked Tecumseh.

  “I don’t know…” replied the senator, still staring into his tea.

  “Hey,” the medic complained, “hold still.”

  “I’ve never seen any chem weapon do shit like this. These people—even the civvies—they were acting like…like animals. All pissed off about something.”

  “Zombies,” Eli said. “Like zombies.”

  “Not like any zombies I’ve ever seen on TV or in the movies,” Cooper said. “They’re moving at normal speed and can talk and make decisions and shit. They’re just pissed off and willing to tear anyone or anything apart that looks at ‘em the wrong way.”

  “They’re fighting each other,” Tecumseh added in his quiet, somber voice.

  “This is bloody well above my pay grade,” groused the cop in riot gear.

  “Have you heard from Ms. Baker?” asked Tecumseh. Upon the confused look from the castellan, he added, “My chief of security.”

  The older man arched an eyebrow at Cooper.

  “Yeah, she’s good,” Cooper said with a smirk. “Almost as good as me.”

  The castellan grunted. “Ah, sadly no. No ladies have come calling. Not since we shut the gates, is all. When we got word of the chemical attack, a lot of the U.N. shitgibbons ran in out of the rain.”

  “Shitgibbons?” asked Cooper.

  “Not English,” muttered Eli.

  “Fuckin’ right, mate,” muttered the medic.

  “I swear, I could sit around listening to you guys cuss all day long,” Cooper said with a grin.

  “Well, stick around, you’re liable to get your wish, Yank,” replied the castellan. He shouldered his weapon and sighed. “Right then. Best you lot come with me for the now. I’ll see you’re given quarters and some clothes. You look a sodding mess.”

  Cooper touched the butterfly dressing on his cheek. He took the offered hand from the medic and groaned as he got to his feet. “I”m getting too old for this shit.”

  “You and me both,” said the castellan. “Due to retire.”

  “How long?”

  “Three months.”

  Cooper exhaled. “I had two weeks left when the Koreans invaded.”

  “Bollocks.”

  Cooper grinned. “You can say that again.”

  “Senator?” asked the castellan. “If you’ll come with me, we’re just going to step out into the rain one more time. Short walk ‘round the crag, then we’ll set you up in the Governor’s House. Should find some nice spare rooms in there.”

  31

  Gimme Fuel, Gimme Fire…

  One man stood between Danika and the street outside the Scottish National Parliament Building. She heaved herself off the writhing bodies on the floor, some dead, some dying, some just bleeding. He screamed and lunged for her, but she easily sidestepped his clumsy punch and drove her palm straight up under his chin. His teeth clacked and his head snapped back, then the man fell face first at her feet and lay still.

  Unable to hold her breath any longer, Danika inhaled and staggered out of the building. A sweet, heady bouquet filled her nose. She clenched her jaw in frustration at having come so close to avoiding Jayne’s trap. Leaning against the wall, she took several deep breaths, hoping the storm had at least diluted the power of whatever chemical Jayne was using to attack the people of Edinburgh. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply as the rain pelted her face. It didn’t seem to be coming down as heavy as it was just a few moments before.

  Danika shoved herself off the wall and adjusted her torn, bloodied blouse. The castle, barely visible now through the veil of the departing storm, loomed over Old Town in the distance up the Royal Mile. The last transmission she’d heard on the radio with any clarity was a call for surviving officers to regroup at the castle.

  She hoped that meant whatever attack had taken place hadn’t yet reached the ancient fortress. If Braaten somehow managed to survive the tunnels and get Senator Tecumseh to safety, that was probably the first place he’d go. Danika squared her shoulders and stomped off through the rain toward the castle. Not for the first time that day, she felt frustrated in her position as a leader in a male-dominated profession, which forced her to dress the part. Even wearing ripstop, waterproof business slacks and a breathable, high-tensile blouse, her clothing had been ripped, bloodied, and torn.

  She glanced down at the blood-slicked, steel-toed pumps she wore. Lashing out with those proved to be more effective than she’d imagined, and the reinforced heels performed like daggers. One swift kick to a man’s thigh, and he dropped like a rock. Despite their tactical advantages and the protection they offered her feet, high-heeled shoes were not good under any circumstances for running—especially uphill in the rain, on a cobblestone street.

  As Danika passed body after body laying in the rain, the street ran pink with the diluted blood of innocents. Civilians and officers alike littered the road. She heard crashes, shouts, and the sound of breaking glass with every step she took, coming from both sides of the street. Gunshots crackled near and far, all around her. Whatever chemical Jayne had used, it had slipped in through cracks and under doors—nowhere had been safe, not even the fortified parliament building.

  Danika blinked, feeling a sudden wave of nausea. She stumbled and fell to one knee, cursing at the sharp pain from the impact. When she stood up, her hands were slick with the water–blood mixture pouring down the hill. She looked down at the sodden clothes she wore.

  How much of this blood is mine? In her rush to escape the building and fight her way through the infected, she hadn’t bothered to stop and see if she’d been injured.

  A fog settled around her head, choking out extraneous thoughts. She shook her head, trying to clear it to no avail. She slipped into a dreamlike state—every thought was a struggle to both conceive and hold onto. She took one more shaky step and collapsed against a cop car, the blue light flashing over her head, bathing her world in alternating shades of bright intense white and a brilliant blue. Her head rested against the hood, now cool from the incessant rain.

  You did this, Jayne…

  As if of their own will, her hands curled into fists. A fiery heat flared in her chest. Her will seemed to focus of its own volition on Jayne, the woman who had brought such reckless destruction and death to Edinburgh. Jayne, who had been responsible for igniting a civil war in the United States, which had killed hundreds of thousands of people. That anger resolved into a hatred, a burning desire for reven
ge. Jayne represented what was left of the Council. The people who stole her from her own family as a teen, who had kidnapped her father and sold her into a life of…

  Danika clenched her jaw to the point of pain.

  No…I will not go down that road…I will not dredge up the past…

  She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her body shudder with the need to strike out, to destroy, to attack, to kill.

  No…I…will…not…give…in…

  Her breathing increased, her heart thudded in her chest. Danika knew somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind that Jayne’s chemical was winning. Whatever she’d breathed in, whatever Jayne had done to her, before long she knew she’d turn into one of the raving people she’d seen fighting and dying in the streets. It wasn’t fair that she’d come so far, done so many horrible things in her life, but had so little time to atone for it all…she needed to make amends.

  And Jayne, with the chemical attack, won’t allow it.

  Danika lifted her head off the car with what little strength she still controlled and screamed, pouring all her hatred and rage into that defiant expression, the uncontrollable urge to destroy something slipping ever closer to occupying her being.

  A surge of adrenaline coursed through her body, and she found herself standing next to the car, looking down at the hood. Her fists ached in a dull way, as if separated from her body. Several fist-size dents peppered the white metal. Looking at her trembling hands, Danika saw the knuckles were bruised and bleeding. She felt a slight tinge of a sting as the rain washed over her open wounds, but like the ache from her hands, the pain seemed distant, removed, inconsequential.

  Something crashed to her left, and she snapped her head sideways, blurring her vision for a split second until her eyes locked on a man who’d crashed through a whiskey shop front. She watched him for a second, fighting the urge to attack. He moaned, lifted himself off the ground, and stood in the rain staring at her. His eyebrows drew together, his mouth creased in a snarl, and he lunged at her.

  Unable to fight the urge any longer, the inner part of Danika who still held on to her own personality closed her eyes. Her infected body, at last relinquished to its own devices, surged forward and delivered three savage blows to the man’s chest and face with aching hands. As he crumpled toward the ground, she spun around behind him and grabbed ahold of one beefy arm. Using her hip to fling him down and around, she drove his face into the curb with a sickening crunch. Unwilling to stop there, she stomped down with all of her weight at the base of his neck, severing his spinal cord with a crunch that made her think of snapping celery.

  Danika let go of his arm, listening with grim satisfaction as it fell to the ground with a wet, limp slap. She stood, allowing her inner self to open her eyes once more, and tried to regain control of her raging body.

  A small voice wailed in the recesses of her mind. What have I done?

  The power and strength she felt course through her body was invigorating. She’d never felt anything quite like it. Even through all her training, all the brutality and ecstasy the Council put her through—learning to counteract drugs and feel their effects, and yet still function in order to accomplish missions in some of the worst hellholes on the planet—nothing had prepared her for this unadulterated access to her body’s basic systems. It was like her consciousness had been transplanted into a new person, someone infinitely more powerful, faster, stronger, and able to switch off pain like turning off a light.

  Despite the fact that every fiber of her being wanted to race forward into the shop and tackle whatever threat was still smashing glass inside, she closed her eyes, tilted her head back and inhaled one deep breath after another.

  Sharing a smile to herself, Danika felt the rage subside and discovered her inner self grabbed just a little more control.

  That’s it…focus…Jayne is the enemy, not these people. Jayne is the one who did this. Jayne is the one who must pay…Jayne is the one I will kill. Jayne…

  Danika opened her eyes and leveled her gaze at the castle which stood out just a little clearer on the top of its crag perched above the Royal Mile. The clouds parted and a ray of sunshine streamed down, illuminating the massive Half Moon Battery, the iconic curved part of the castle seen in most pictures around the world.

  Danika smiled as she latched onto the idea that Providence had placed her on the street at that exact moment in time to see that light shine on her target, to feel the power coursing through her body thanks to Jayne’s attack. She narrowed her eyes and decided it was time to see what her new body could do.

  Still maintaining an iron grip on the rage that bubbled just below the surface, Danika propelled herself forward at a breakneck speed. Her eyes opened wide in surprise at the newfound strength the chemical Jayne had altered her body with now provided. Her legs pumped tirelessly as her feet slapped the pavement. Worried about being unable to maintain balance and speed in high heels, she kicked her feet, sending the armored high heels flying to opposite sides of the street.

  Running on her bare feet through the rain made her feel like she was flying. Only the balls of her feet touched the ground as she let her legs stretch and propel her faster and faster through the slackening rain, splashing through puddles of water and blood. The buildings and shops lining the street turned into a gray blur, reminding her of Tecumseh’s convoy from the airport.

  At that memory, her inner self took just a little more control back from whatever Jayne had done to her. She put her body on autopilot, weaving in and around cop cars, bodies, and those who staggered out into the street in an attempt to attack her. She swore she would not kill anyone else until she found Jayne. If she could learn to control whatever had been done to her, she might be able to teach others. It might be the first step in saving lives.

  Danika smiled. If she was able to do anything at all to undo what Jayne had done, she would count that as a victory. But she would not rest until Jayne’s blood coated her own hands, and she stared down at the lifeless body.

  Danika unleashed a howl of rage as she ran up the Royal Mile.

  32

  The Great Hall

  Jayne stood in Edinburgh Castle’s Great Hall, mingling with dozens of U.N. delegates and officials, almost all of them on cellphones, talking in foreign languages. The noise was incredible and also the perfect cover for her to contact anyone she wanted. Roaming the castle as millionaire heiress Claudia Seagrave, she had almost unlimited access to the castle grounds. The New Barracks had been converted into emergency quarters for most of the delegates and officials, reserving the rooms in the Governor’s House—where she had been billeted—for the highest-ranking U.N. officers, including the Secretary General.

  She peered up at the age-darkened, hammerbeam ceiling. With her hands behind her back holding her bejeweled clutch, Jayne marveled at the engineering skill it required to build what essentially was a wooden sailing ship upside down as a roof. And they did it hundreds of years ago without the benefit of modern technology and tools.

  The ceiling was at least 20 feet high, and despite her training to overcome any and all fears she might encounter on a mission, imagining herself dangling that high over a cold stone floor sent a slight shiver down the back of her leg. She turned to peruse the arms and armor displays lining the sides of the long room, nodding in greeting to several of her foreign acquaintances. A liveried waiter approached her with a tray of bottled water and asked with a French accent if she would like one.

  “No, thank you,” she said with a smile. The server nodded politely and turned to find another person to ask.

  Jayne found herself next to a tall, stained glass window overlooking the castle’s central courtyard. Directly across from the Great Hall was the Scottish National War Memorial. To her right, the Royal Palace housed the Scottish Crown Jewels. To her left, across the square promenade, was the Prisoner of War Exhibition. Several armed soldiers patrolled the open space, ignoring the light rain.

  She squinted up at the darkening s
ky. Despite the fact that the storm had moved through and was now only misting rain, it lasted for the better part of the day. Soon enough, the sun would set and the castle would be plunged into darkness.

  Jayne had heard the rumors like everyone else in the room that the senator assigned to represent the United States during the North Korean summit had arrived—at last—safely at the castle. Try as she might, she hadn’t found him yet, but she imagined with all the other dignitaries gathering in the Great Hall, it would only be a matter of time before Senator Denoyan Tecumseh made his presence known.

  Jayne smirked. If he was like every other politician she’d met, he wouldn’t dare waste the chance to shake hands and canvas for votes in this informal setting. He was known as something of a firebrand, and Jayne foresaw a stellar political career—assuming he applied himself and didn’t let sentiment and logic get in the way of his career.

  The phone in her clutch buzzed silently. Jayne casually looked around to see if anyone was near, then open the tiny handbag and removed her phone, which took up almost all the space inside. “Hello,” she said, tossing her hair over her one shoulder as she put the speaker to her ear. She smiled at a delegate who raised his bottle of water in salute to her.

  “You’re going to have company,” a deep voice said on the other end of the line.

  “Is that so?” she asked, smiling for the sake of the few delegates nearby.

  “I just heard they’re going to re-task a SEAL Team. Bringing them over from Belgium. They’ll be there within two hours. Whatever you’re going to do, you’ve got to do it now.”

  Jayne nodded, pursing her lips and staring out the window as if listening to a long-winded conversation from a donor or corporate interest. “I see, I see. I hardly think that that would constitute anything requiring a change of plans. Such a small group, really.”

  The delegate from Norway smiled at her, watching her shapely figure in a glittering, sequined dress of radiant blue. Jayne met his eyes, covered the phone with her free hand, and mouthed the word Press.