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

by CM Raymond

  “This can’t be right,” he said.

  The chemist went over the data again and a third time. In ways, it looked completely normal, but there was something in the blood that shouldn’t be there. Something not human. He leaned against the lab stool and closed his eyes.

  Did I place my trust in the wrong lab tech?

  In disbelief, Chem looked at the report again.

  The historian’s blood contained two things that shouldn’t be there. Things that were, for the most part, unknown to the scientist who had committed his life to this trade. One was a compound similar to the Baclofen that he had recently “acquired” from the medical lab. But it was different, like nothing he’d ever seen before. Close enough in structure, but also strangely erratic.

  The other factor was vexing. As far as Chem could tell, it had the makeup of a typical VOC—a volatile organic compound. The chemist grabbed a clean slide and applied a drop of Elijah’s blood. Sliding it under the microscope, he focused on its composition. The elements that looked like a VOC now appeared similar to benzene, a compound released in the manufacturing of steel.

  Any VOC like this could be dangerous, but this particular one was off the charts.

  What are you doing here?

  He closed his eyes again and considered the mixture of the Baclofen, or whatever it was, and the VOC.

  He imagined the result of their mixture when introduced with a catalyst. It would be an explosion of power, of heat. The human body couldn’t contain it. Wouldn’t survive. This kind of reaction happening inside of a person would blow the body to bits. And yet it sat there, in Elijah Branton’s blood.

  Then he remembered the burns covering the gangbanger he had treated last night. And the man’s rambling words about a monster.

  He pictured the burns on Elijah’s chest. Somehow, the historian did survive.

  “Holy shit.”

  Chem couldn’t help laughing like a madman. The answer to his project was swimming around in the blood of a historian from Boston. Elijah’s veins contained the keys to human enhancement and spontaneous healing.

  A voice on the scanner caught his attention.

  This is Dispatch. I need a car on Mount Washington to check out a report of an incident.

  A second voice rang back, 10-4, Dispatch. This is 221, I’ll swing by. What’s the issue?

  Thanks, 221. Well, we got a call from a frantic citizen saying a man was out of control.

  The officer grunted, Roger that. That time of the year, I guess.

  221, use caution—man described as a monster.

  The man laughed, Monster? Repeat, Dispatch.

  That’s right. A monster. They said they watched him turn into, well, a monster.

  10-4, the officer answered with a sigh. I’ll check it out.

  Chem looked down at the results again. Then he grabbed his medical bag and ran for the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “When, wrapt in self, the soul enjoys repose,

  The wearied brain resigns its fervent heat…”

  Willa’s words continued to flow. They had kept whatever was happening to Elijah at bay for a time, but now Willa could do nothing but slow the transformation. He stumbled toward her. His face was tied in knots, and his eyes were as black as coal. His footsteps plodded and grew heavy.

  The spell had pointed her toward Mount Washington, and she had arrived the moment Elijah bolted from the restaurant. She yelled to him, but it was like he couldn’t hear her. He ran down the street away from the building and she followed, finding it hard to believe that the bookish historian had been the thing to attack her the other night.

  All doubt disappeared when she saw the change beginning to take him. His skin pulsed, like it was trying to explode. Steam poured off of him. She started chanting, a spell she had never used before, praying that it would work.

  Willa focused harder on her magic, her concentration blocking out the world. She and the historian were all that existed. Power coming through the words slowed him, but she knew she couldn’t hold it for long. He yelled and she could feel the rage in his voice.

  Panic struck and her words faltered.

  His transformation was immediate.

  Elijah expanded like a dry sponge dropped in a bucket of water. His clothes split apart and fell, tattered rags fluttering to the ground. His skin, covered in red like a massive sunburn, went pale and then grew gray. The gray turned metallic and reflected the light from a street lamp.

  As the figure that was once Elijah Branton continued to expand, his metal skin turned dark—like wood charring over a fire. Cracks developed in his metal frame; a glowing ooze, like lava, seeped from each tiny fissure. His eyes turned crimson.

  He was Elijah no longer. Now he was the creature from the alley. And she could read murder in its monstrous gaze.

  Just twenty paces away, she could make out drops of molten steel left in his wake. The monster screamed. Without turning its attention, it swung a giant metal arm, knocking a light pole into the street.

  Concentrate, Willa, she thought. This is it.

  The woman considered running, but she couldn’t abandon Elijah, whatever he was. Nor could she let this thing free to rampage. There was no telling what the beast would do—or what it wanted. Willa knew her power might be the only thing to prevent disaster and possibly save his life.

  A different poem came to mind. Instead of just speaking the lines, she shouted them, as loud as her voice would carry. She hurled her words at him.

  “From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

  My spirit drank repose;

  The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—

  From those deep cisterns flows.”

  The monster stopped, dripping steel in one spot. It took a step backward and snarled. Willa kept yelling the lines—as if life depended on them.

  Defense would only last so long. The creature was powerful—and pissed. Her mind raced through her catalog of memorized poems. Her arsenal. She prayed in foreign tongues for something to come to her. This pause was just enough for the creature to pull itself together. It took two steps and drew back an enormous arm. The appendage was thick. It dripped molten metal as it moved. Willa stopped thinking and braced for impact. She could feel the heat emanating from the figure.

  The attack was well announced, beginning its arc from three steps away. Though not the most graceful, the magician-poet dropped to the concrete and rolled, barely dodging the monster’s deliberate movements. She watched the metal fist smash the concrete wall behind her. The clinking sound of rock on metal filled the air. Shrapnel rained. Something hot splashed onto Willa’s leg and she screamed in pain.

  Desperate to escape, Willa shuffled against the nearest car. She dropped flat on her stomach and rolled under it, looking for whatever shelter she might find. A glowing hand swept the space between her shaking body and the curb. But she was just out of reach.

  Catching her breath, she returned to searching for the spell that might knock out the beast. She knew the professor was in there someplace. She needed words that might immobilize without harming the man who had lost control of his body and mind.

  Then, amidst the noise and chaos, a word came to her. Then another. And another.

  It wasn’t a poem she had learned from Edwin. In fact, it wasn’t a poem from the Canon at all. It was a simple little rhyme, something her father used to whisper to when she was awoken by a bad dream.

  Grab my hand, hold it tight, and you’ll be safe all through the night.

  She hadn’t thought about it in years, but now, the words clanged like a bell in her mind. Desperate to escape.

  All thought of her grandfather and the Canon and The Guild with its rules disappeared. There were only the poem and the monster before her.

  Willa opened her lips to speak.

  “Grab my hand—”

  But before she could finish, two steel hands gripped the undercarriage of the vehicle. The creature had given up on reach and traded it
for brute strength. The car flipped over into the street. Willa lay prostrate, looking into the eyes of her attacker.

  Fear rushed in and pushed the words away. She abandoned the poem and cried out for help. For something to save her.

  For someone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “There’s an extra fifty bucks in this for you, if you can get me there in ten minutes.”

  The driver’s eyes looked back at Chem. “Sorry, man, we can’t take tips. And getting you up to Mount Washington that fast at this time of the night is damn near impossible.”

  Chem pulled two dirty hundred-dollar bills from his pocket—part of the wages from his back alley work. “Make it $200. And I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  The Honda Civic veered into the opposite lane, toward oncoming traffic. Moments before collision, the kid cut back. He drove as a man possessed. Chem glanced at his watch, hoping he wasn’t too late.

  Twelve minutes later the Honda skidded to a stop three blocks from their destination. Two police vehicles barricaded the road. Chem tossed the bills in the front passenger seat and jumped from the car.

  “Thanks, man,” the driver said. “Hey, don’t forget to leave me a review.”

  Ignoring him, Chem slammed the door and ran toward the distant sounds of warfare. His long lanky legs straddled the yellow police tape. The cops were crouching, guns drawn, behind open car doors.

  “Hey,” one of Pittsburgh’s finest yelled, “you can’t go up there.”

  Chem shot a look over his shoulders at the boys in blue. “You guys probably want to stay back,” he growled.

  His legs pumped; the medical bag swung at his side.

  He came upon the scene just in time to see an old Honda flipping through the air. A cowering Willa Weil lay exposed at the foot of a monster.

  What the hell.

  The seven-foot glowing metal beast was terrifying, yet part of Chem was thrilled at the sight. He knew from the lab results that terrible things would could happen to a person exposed to those compounds, but to see the results in action blew his mind.

  If the thing before him truly was his new friend, the possibilities were staggering. He imagined what he could do with the vial of Elijah Branton’s blood now sitting in his lab. It might be the key to his problem.

  He worked to control his rising panic. The scientist in him took over, making observations about the creature and its effects on the outside world. But all that stopped when he realized what it was trying to do.

  The beast was about to kill Willa.

  Chem ran, picking up a metal pole along the way. It had been melted in half—clearly the monster’s handiwork—but what remained made for one hell of a club.

  Chem swung it with all the strength he had.

  The monster staggered backward, more out of surprise than in pain as Chem connected the pole with the side of its head.

  The weapon left a nasty indent, but as the thing turned to look at him, its molten flesh reformed itself.

  “Shit,” Chem yelled as it slammed its fist into the ground. The force of the impact threw Chem through the air.

  The creature turned its attention back toward Willa. The frightened professor mumbled something in its direction. One hand raised, she knelt like a martyr ready for her fate. The monster stepped toward her. It lumbered like it was fighting invisible restraints. Somehow, she was doing something to it, though Chem couldn’t guess what.

  By the look on her face, Willa couldn’t keep it up for long.

  Chem climbed to his feet and opened his medical bag. He reached for a vial of pale blue liquid, and a hypodermic needle.

  With enough of his “painkiller” to knock out a horse, the chemist made his move.

  “Hey, Fire Balls, come and get me.”

  The monster turned, and Chem saw its eyes. They burned red. Still, there was something human, familiar, deep inside. He didn’t need to run a test to know it was Elijah. But as the creature stepped toward him, that insight didn’t offer much comfort.

  The hypodermic needle shook in his hand. Chem considered his next play. The further the creature got from Willa, the faster its steps became. Like a swimmer trudging toward the shore, it picked up momentum. The monster roared.

  He calculated an escape route and knew he only had seconds to act before his window closed. But he held his ground. This moment could determine the fate of his research, his life’s work. He needed Elijah Branton alive, and the odds decreased if the entire Pittsburgh police force rolled onto the scene. He would have faced fiery death before he’d abandon this chance. Chem balled his fist, not knowing what else to.

  As the creature reached a glowing hand toward the scientist, a wave of blue energy pulsed through the air. The monster spun and slammed into a parked car, leaving a dent and heat-rippled paint. Willa Weil strode forward, both hands raised. She was still mumbling something, and Chem half believed it was her words pinning the monster.

  But there was no time to think on it. Chem sprang into action.

  With three strides and the aim of an Olympian, he found a crease in the monster’s metal exterior. The needle sunk into something; whether it was flesh or not he couldn’t be sure. His hand was on fire. There was just enough time to thumb the plunger then roll away.

  Chem landed on concrete, scraping skin from his arm. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched the beast stagger forward. The poet continued her song. He wasn’t sure what she was doing, but the combination of her hypnotic words and his tranquilizer seemed to be doing the trick.

  “Time to turn your ass to ash, bitch,” he yelled at the creature.

  It stared at him. Chem had pissed it off—and he knew it. The creature took a step forward and the chemist held his breath. After a few drunken strides, the monster’s eyes dimmed, and it dropped to its knees. The tranquilizer set in.

  The body of the beast pulsated; it twitched with what Chem could only assume was pain. The seven-foot creature progressively lost its stature in front of his eyes. The unformed surface of liquid metal flowed off the monster and pooled at the feet of a burnt, but very human, heap of flesh kneeling on the road.

  Chem looked down at Elijah on the sidewalk. Willa, breathing heavy from the fight, stood beside him.

  “Nice work, Dr. Weil.”

  “Yeah. Nothing to it.” She patted him on the back. “Nice form.”

  “Me or him?” Chem nodded at his friend’s naked body. “Cause there’s nothing that creeps me out more than a naked white guy in public.”

  PART TWO

  The shades of night were falling fast,

  As through an Alpine village passed

  A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,

  A banner with the strange device,

  Excelsior!

  His brow was sad; his eye beneath,

  Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,

  And like a silver clarion rung

  The accents of that unknown tongue,

  Excelsior!

  In happy homes he saw the light

  Of household fires gleam warm and bright;

  Above, the spectral glaciers shone,

  And from his lips escaped a groan,

  Excelsior!...

  At break of day, as heavenward

  The pious monks of Saint Bernard

  Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,

  A voice cried through the startled air,

  Excelsior!

  A traveller, by the faithful hound,

  Half-buried in the snow was found,

  Still grasping in his hand of ice

  That banner with the strange device,

  Excelsior!

  There in the twilight cold and gray,

  Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,

  And from the sky, serene and far,

  A voice fell, like a falling star,

  Excelsior!

  “Excelsior,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Fire. Anger. Pain.


  Elijah awoke from his nightmare with a scream. The same nightmare he had the night before, the same terror.

  Deja vu, he thought. Except it wasn’t the same. Something was off.

  This wasn’t his room.

  Everything about the bed—the sheets, mattress, and pillow—felt foreign to Elijah. Its smell was alien. His body ached and his eyes were crusted closed with a century’s worth of sleep. Prying them open, he found himself in a wholly unfamiliar place.

  The late morning sun peeked in through a tiny window, dimly illuminating his surroundings. The room was relatively nondescript: simple dresser, simple mirror, and a small bookcase—shelves sagging with the weight of its contents. The volumes were a mix of old and new.

  The door of the room was ajar, just enough to peer into the adjoining kitchen. A figure, distinctly female, cut across his line of sight. She had dark hair, wore sweatpants and a long-sleeved, form-fitting tee. Maybe he had gone out on the town and gotten lucky enough to wind up here. But his body screamed as he shifted in the bed. If it was coitus, it must have been some freaky 50 Shades action.

  Peeling back the sheets, he found himself naked. The thought of nocturnal activities returned, if only for a second. His body was bruised, worse than before. Elijah rolled up onto one elbow, groaning.

  The door to the bedroom eased open, and his mystery host appeared.

  “You?” he asked, his voice rising an octave.

  “You look terrible,” Willa said.

  Elijah shifted, trying to find a less painful position. He looked up at her, noticing dark circles under her eyes. “You don’t quite look ready for the prom yourself, sweetheart.”

  “And, as charming as ever.” The woman looked down at his exposed crotch. “You mind covering up there, champ. I had my fill last night.”