Catalyst: A Superhero Urban Fantasy Thrillride (Steel City Heroes Book 1)

by CM Raymond

  Elijah decided to leave his bag in the car, opting only to take a notebook and a cheap Bic pen with him. He could take pictures with his phone. He was unsure of the condition of the derelict plant and cursed himself for not being more prepared. Rex reached behind his seat and grabbed a large Maglite. He also produced a set of keys from his coat pocket. “These should open any door you find inside the plant.”

  “You’re…you’re not coming with me?” Elijah stuttered.

  “That’s really more of a job for someone of your maturity. I’d probably just get in the way. I’ll just sit here and listen to sports stuff.” A smirk washed across his face.

  Elijah resigned himself to crawling around in the dark alone. As he turned to shut the door, Rex yelled out to him. “Don’t forget this.” He reached into Elijah’s bag and pulled out the strange Alarawn medallion. Throwing it to Elijah, he said, “You’d better not lose it, or I’ll have your ass.”

  The historian took it, running his thumb over the engravings. Considering Rex’s warning, he decided to put the amulet around his neck for safekeeping. With the muffled sound of talk radio playing behind him, he bolstered his courage and entered the building.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cold dead air surrounded Elijah as he stepped through the doorway. It was hard for him to imagine that once upon a time this place would have been sweltering, the heat of the furnaces baking the bodies of its workers. Large holes in the ceiling provided some illumination, keeping the bowels of the mill out of total darkness. Elijah was still thankful for the flashlight. Industrial ruins danced as the powerful beam swept around the space.

  Monstrous machines littered the room—giant blast furnaces, rollers used to shape the hot metal ingots into sheets and rails, and large chains with hooks hanging overhead. This place had horror film written all over it. In its prime, hearing anything over the tremendous din that these machines produced would have been impossible. Now, Elijah could almost taste the silence.

  He didn’t expect to find much of value here, but he liked to get into the mind, so to speak, of the places he was researching. Not every answer could be found in the library.

  He walked carefully through the plant, avoiding the rusted metal traps in his path. Bypassing the administrative offices—they would have been cleared out decades ago—he moved deeper into the heart of the old building, toward the open-hearth furnaces.

  He couldn’t quite name it, but something pulled him in that direction.

  The furnaces were what made this factory unique. They were way better than the older models that came before and helped push Pittsburgh to dominance for most of the century. They were also the source of a lot of conflict between the owners and the labor. More efficient furnaces meant less need for workers. Even though Elijah was mostly hired to talk about the positives of AI’s history in the city, he knew their fights with labor were far from honorable. And far from bloodless.

  Making history is a violent endeavor.

  Walking toward the oldest corner of the building, he found several large pieces of equipment blocking his path. A steel walkway led over the top of the obstruction. Following his light, Elijah backtracked a hundred feet until he found a stairway leading to the platform. He grabbed the railing and shook it violently. Seeing that it passed his test, he took several tentative steps upwards.

  From above, he had a better view of the factory floor. Elijah imagined himself as a pit boss, overseeing the hundreds of men working below.

  He passed over the blockage and entered the deeper parts of the mill. A strange warmth grew around him. At first, he chalked it up to the physical effort, but after moving another hundred feet, the change in temperature was undeniable. Beads of sweat ran down his spine underneath his peacoat. Elijah reached into his pocket, his fingers traced the lines of the medallion. It was warm to the touch, hot even.

  Just as he reached to remove his coat, something on the ground caught his eye. A slight glow emanated from one of the steel furnaces.

  That can’t be right. These fires have been cold for decades.

  Trying to get a closer look, he leaned over the railing.

  Years of corrosion had set their trap. The bar snapped, catapulting his body over the edge.

  Flailing, Elijah managed to grasp part of the railing. Pitted steel bit at his palm. His flashlight escaped him, and he hung, dangling in the darkness. He groped for the railing with his other hand but grabbed nothing but empty space.

  A panicked scream echoed around the empty cavern, but the call came back empty.

  Hopeless.

  His chest burned.

  The acrid smell of roasting flesh assaulted his nostrils. Elijah looked down. A large cauldron brimming with molten steel sat beneath him.

  That can’t be. The words rushed through his mind.

  Desperately, he tried again to lift his free hand upward. Straining with the last of his strength, his fingers reached towards the metal bar. His hand moved toward the rail.

  He was almost there.

  Then suddenly he wasn’t alone. A man stood above him on the platform wearing a black ski mask. He looked down at Elijah, a cruel smile stuck out from the fabric’s opening, clear in the darkness.

  “Help me,” Elijah said.

  “I am,” the man replied. Then he kicked the metal bar.

  Part of the railing, rusted from exposure, came undone. The sudden jerk was too much. Elijah’s hand slipped from its tentative hold.

  He fell.

  Time stood still.

  The man’s face, distorted by the mask laughed at him, watching Elijah as he floated through a sea of nothing toward the bubbling pool of hell.

  Elijah screamed until his screams were swallowed by the heat below.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Rana te ljuta zapala…

  Wait.

  Where am I? It has been so long in that place—away. Darkness. Death? Am I on the other side? The light came, and I was gone. I saw heaven, must have been heaven—I am…was a good man. But there wasn’t joy, but pain.

  And heat.

  Much heat.

  Not heaven, but hell. Fire and heat came from above. It took me away from there, from her. Oh, Adrijana. But where is she now? And where am I?

  The mill. I remember. I remember what they did to me. What he did to me.

  This pain is too great. Everything is fire.

  Where are they? They were here moments ago. Before the burning, everything burning.

  These hands worked, bled, for the good of the men, for the good of the city. I am zduhać.

  No, not anymore. These are not my hands, what is this? Are these the hands of the redeemed?

  They burn like the damned.

  If I am still on Earth then he must be here.

  He who turned me into this, this monster.

  I will find him.

  I will kill him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “It’s too damn cold for a drum circle,” King grumbled.

  Every Thursday night, he showed up on the Cathedral of Learning lawn. The draw was mostly the coeds—he had a thing for these new hippies and the joints they passed between them. The college kids could afford good weed, and he didn’t mind partaking. Students rotated every four years. There were always new faces. King was the constant. He’d been hanging out in the circles since before Al Gore allegedly invented the Internet.

  That night, King wasn’t feeling it. He shook some hands, bumped a fist or two, and strode off toward Forbes Avenue. Drunks would soon be shifting from bar to bar. A perfect time for King to make friends and maybe some money. Oakland, his home since birth, was his throne.

  He jammed his tingling hands into wool-lined pockets. If nothing else, a guy from Pittsburgh needed a warm outer layer.

  King’s coat couldn’t be too nice. The streetwalker was “residentially ambiguous”—as he needed to be. Most of the Oakland community assumed he was homeless—which he wasn’t—and jobless—which was most often true. Likable
and perceptibly homeless was a great combination for making money on the streets. And his was a generous city.

  “Hey, King, what’s up, man?”

  He threw his right arm in the air as the car shot past. King was an Oakland staple. Over his twenty-eight years of walking the streets, King had seen his share of the bizarre: political protests, streakers, creative public urination, and plenty of drunken fistfights.

  Nothing could surprise him.

  Until tonight.

  King nodded at a group of under-aged frat guys as they staggered toward the next bar. He was pretty sure he heard a racial slur garbled in his direction. Not uncommon. Fast on their heels was a group of women—one wearing a tiara—the others singing “Going to the Chapel.” The one near the back gave a catcall. King couldn’t help but smile.

  “Right back at you, baby,” he shouted.

  This was life in a college town, and life was good.

  

  His Casio told him it was still an hour and change until last call at Gene’s Place. Gene’s was King’s kind of dive bar. Unlike the college bars on the main drag, Gene’s drew the neighborhood folk, those who had not yet been driven out by rising rents or bought out by land-hungry universities. The establishment was tight, smoky, and made of steel town charm. If Pete was on the bar, King knew he could score a shot and a beer to sustain his waning buzz.

  Dodging the light traffic, he crossed Forbes and made his way down Atwood. The further from the campus, the more authentic things became. Gene’s Place was as real as it got.

  The smell of greasy smoke and the vibration of roots rock seeped into the night air. King gave the jolly German character on the sign a nod as he pulled his last Lucky from a crumpled soft pack. Just as he reached for the door, a rumble and crash echoed through the alley. King turned toward the commotion.

  Thirty feet down York, a dumpster spun on its side like a giant toy top. Beyond the screeching mass, King saw a figure. It was like a man, but two feet taller and twice as wide. The monstrosity cut through a tight row of houses in the direction of the park.

  “The hell?” King uttered.

  With the balls of his palms pressed against his eyes, he wondered if the free weed was laced with something funky. His footsteps echoed through the now-empty alley as he walked toward the crash. The feel of steel confirmed that the dumpster was not a figment of his drug-altered mind. One side of it was scorched, warped, and hot to the touch.

  Stepping between the houses, King found the creature’s escape route. Dark marks scarred the brick home on the right. Melted vinyl siding dripped to the concrete on his left. The chain-link enclosure at the end of the walk had been obliterated. King approached it, the smell of burning metal in his nose. He reached out his hand and touched the fence’s remains with two fingers.

  Pain split his brain. He pulled his hand back. “Shit.”

  Black char marks led toward the back of the properties and up over a brick wall.

  Nursing his burnt fingers, he walked back toward the bar.

  Definitely need that shot and a beer.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The back alley was desolate, as back alleys tend to be. Though he could hear noise coming from the houses on either side, Chem felt alone. The first few times he had walked this path, he was anxious and uncertain. Practice and repetition numbed his fear. His stride now confident, he still remained alert.

  Homestead had a reputation for its less favorable inhabitants. He knew that it was largely undeserved. Like most neighborhoods in the city, the town was relatively safe. The narrow, abandoned buildings could terrify a tourist trying to get to Kennywood—Pittsburgh’s riverside amusement park—but unless you were looking for trouble most of the neighborhood was peaceful. But looking for trouble was Chem’s job.

  Initially, doing business with local dealers turned his stomach and pulled at his conscience. Gang life, the way most might imagine it, was not quite as extensive in Pittsburgh. But drugs and poverty encouraged a certain level of violence. Those who operated within that sphere needed a man with Chem’s skill sets. There were fewer med school dropouts than one would imagine, and even fewer who were willing to cross the lines that Chem would leap across with abandon.

  But he needed the cash.

  After all, scientific advancement trumped the moral ambiguities of his back-alley business. Lesser evils for the greater good had to count for virtue in the great cosmic economy, or at least that’s what he told himself. And when it came down to it, no matter their trade, the dealers and thugs were still human, which, in Chem’s eyes, maintained some kind of inherent worth. Some kind of dignity.

  He hated taking time away from the lab, but research was at a standstill, and his run-in with security meant that he had to find alternative sources for his chemicals—not a cheap endeavor.

  Certain that he was on the right track with his new work with Baclofen, he still couldn’t manipulate it appropriately in the human blood cultures that he used to test it. Too small of a dosage was ineffective. But too much and the drug caused lethargy and depression—precisely the opposite of the intended results. Not to mention, a severe overdose would lead to a mental breakdown or death. Humans were just too weak to be strong.

  He needed the drug to work. The Vida Serum needed it. And he couldn’t risk error.

  Turning a corner, Chem found the dimly lit building. The crumbling stoop sagged beneath his feet. The brick house resembled most others in the neighborhood—run down and nearly condemned. A spare piece of two-by-four supported the gutter, plywood covered a front window. Absentee landlords only cared that their tenements were filled and rent checks came in—most months. Home maintenance didn’t chart high on the priority list for a slumlord living in Florida.

  Chem tried the door. More often than not, they preferred he just walk in. His heart would always pause as he pushed against the knob. But it didn’t budge. Knocking, he waited for an answer.

  Something big must be going down.

  The door cracked open, only as far as the security chain would allow.

  The first few house calls had terrified the scientist. Thoughts of botching a surgery surrounded by armed thugs would intimidate the most experienced doctor. And Chem was far from the most experienced. Hell, he was officially not a doctor. But these guys didn’t ask to see his credentials. The work was straight forward. Gunshot wounds were generally routine: numb them, pull the slug, stitch the wound, and clean that bad boy up.

  Easy money.

  “What d’you want?” A husky voice bellowed.

  “I’m the doctor.” He held up his bag as identification.

  The door slammed in Chem’s face. The sliding of metal on metal bled through the cheap hollow wood.

  He stepped across the threshold onto a small landing filled with variously sized shoes pointing in every direction. The thought of children living amid such violence and squalor was nauseating, though Chem recognized the hypocrisy in his judgment. His own parents had worked hard to provide him with the resources necessary to live a socially upstanding life—a life he threw away when he began his less than legal experiments.

  Everyone had choices to make—not everyone was given the same options. Whatever differences existed between Chem and these people, their choices had brought them to the same house that night.

  “Thanks for coming.” The man’s eyes were filled with concern.

  “It’s my job,” Chem said. “Where is he?”

  The man nodded down a hall lined with closed doors. Chem preferred to stay in the open. Back bedrooms hid surprises and, though scrappy, he wasn’t much of a fighter. Once, someone jumped him for a bottle of pain pills, and he barely made it out in one piece. But that was near the beginning of his “career.” Now he could trust in his reputation. Someone with his talent and ethical nuance was a rare commodity, and whatever else they were, most drug dealers weren’t stupid. They were rational enough not to ruin that relationship.

  He passed through the living r
oom. Bodies sprawled—filling couches and nearly every inch of the floor. They were frozen in time.

  Damn drugs.

  Although Chem experienced the same scene several times a month, it still unnerved him. His host—an enormous man in a bloody tank and drooping jeans—led him to a back bedroom.

  Through the open door, Chem saw a man clutching his right arm. A red handkerchief served as a half-assed tourniquet. The patient was propped up on a pile of pillows, resting on a sofa—a familiar grimace on his face. A toddler, no more than three, slept soundly against his chest. This scene never made it onto television. Chem approached, slowly. He’d been doing this long enough to expect the worst.

  Wounded men were unpredictable.

  “What happened?” he asked. But the bloody man was unresponsive. He stared up at the ceiling, a wild look in his eyes.

  Shock.

  Looking more closely at his patient, Chem noticed his shoulder. It was black and crusted over. Even someone without medical training could assess that the burn was bad.

  Chem picked up the child and settled him in a faded recliner on the other side of the room. Returning to his patient, he cut away what was left of the man’s shirt.

  A hand shot up and grabbed Chem by the collar. Startled, he dropped his scissors.

  “It attacked me.”

  Chem took hold of the man’s arm and replaced it by his side. His eyes looked through the Chem to some unknown horror beyond.

  “It’s okay, man. I’m here to help you. How did you get these burns?”

  The man nodded and bit his lip. “That thing. It was huge...”

  Chem’s body relaxed. Experience told him that he would be fine.

  He’s hallucinating. Probably self-medicated before I arrived.

  But his patient returned to his comatose state, unable to answer any more questions. Chem took a moment to inspect the burn. There was a first time for everything, and Chem wondered how the man came by it. Whatever did this, it was hot as hell.