The Push Chronicles (Book 2): Indefatigable

by J. B. Garner

  Indefatigable

  The Push Chronicles: Book 2

  By J. B. Garner

  Copyright 2014 J. B. Garner

  Cover art illustrated by Felipe de Barros

  In memory of Jon Compton, my dearest friend, without whose constant support any of my books would not have been written.

  To Reyn and Dave, who gave me the encouragement and opportunity to write these words. They are my family and I love them dearly.

  To Mom, David, and Christine, from who I had separated myself and finally found the courage to return to my life.

  Thanks as well to Shay, Tessa, and Aaron for their support and insight

  A Special Thanks to my Kickstarter Contributors:

  Stephanie Urch

  David Garner, Jr.

  Cryolite

  Silver Games LLC

  Eric Finch

  Matthew Smith

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Deep

  Chapter 2 Cross

  Chapter 3 Archer

  Chapter 4 Relations

  Chapter 5 Home

  Chapter 6 Drinks

  Chapter 7 Blood

  Chapter 8 Bomb

  Chapter 9 Charming

  Chapter 10 Scale

  Chapter 11 Stakes

  Chapter 12 Mackenzie

  Chapter 13 Loyalty

  Chapter 14 Deathtrap

  Chapter 15 Reunion

  Chapter 16 Room

  Chapter 17 Dusk

  Chapter 18 Midnight

  Chapter 19 Twilight

  Chapter 20 Sunrise

  Chapter 21 Parting

  Chapter 22 Epic

  About the Author

  Other titles by J. B. Garner

  Chapter 1 Deep

  I ignored the gentle throb in my knuckles as I pried away the boards from the door. Last night's brawl with Buzzkill and his human gang had been rougher than I would have liked. The stitches in my side were evidence of that. Taking on one meth-fueled Pushcrook and his entourage would have been simple if all of the Atlanta Five had been there, but it was just Extinguisher and myself. That was an awkward enough pairing as it was; putting it into a dangerous situation made it worse. It was just another evening in the ever-growing slog that was the life of Dr. Irene Roman, former physiologist, now 'Nationally-Famous Superhero' Indomitable. Maybe it wasn't so bad for my Pushed colleagues, they had actual reality-bending, superhuman abilities, but for me, whose only advantage was unrelenting stubbornness and a talent for ignoring the unreality that pervaded our world, it was a hard, painful role to step into.

  Outside, it was a lazy fall afternoon: a perfect day, at least as perfect as any day had been since the Whiteout. I would have preferred to be spending a lazy day in Grant Park, catching some fresh air and a healthy rest, but when I got the call from Rachel Choi about a lead on the Downtown disappearances, I didn't have a choice. Lives were at stake. That was why I was now breaking into a disused portion of Underground Atlanta, sealed off since the 1920s. The last board fell away and I forced the rusted hinges of the door open.

  "Are you sure about this?" I whispered. At least the new suit and the new gear was nice, especially the microphones and receivers. Rachel's voice came crisply over my earbud.

  "Mind's Eye corroborated what Duane pieced together from the eyewitness accounts, at least until you entered the scene." The Indian seer's powers, just like any of the other Pushed, went askew the second I, or the few others like me, became involved. "Are you sure you don't want to wait until I can arrange for some backup? Duane should be done with his client briefings within the hour and Extinguisher is out on patrol, so it probably wouldn't take him long to get there." The very personal problems between Extinguisher and myself had managed to be kept that way: personal. Even the very astute observer that is former FBI agent Rachel Choi hadn't picked up on what few clues we let slip.

  "That's okay," I replied. I took a moment to focus before wrenching the door free from it's rusty prison. A stale, rank stench permeated the air beyond. "There's no telling when this creep will strike again or what state the victims are in. We can't risk waiting."

  "I suppose you're right." There was a tapping at a keyboard. "Still, keep in contact. Don't hesitate to call for the cavalry." I grunted an acknowledgment to the advice I was very unlikely to follow as I stepped through the open doorway. This construction was old, lacking the multiple refurbishments of the other parts of Underground. It was moist, dank, and the walls dripped with condensation. I could only guess that a forgotten sewer pipe or some natural stream vent had broken into these tunnels. While the door had been sealed, I couldn't help but notice that there were a few partial footprints in some of the deeper grime. Someone or something had been through this way in the recent past. I crept further along, senses straining in the darkness.

  I wasn't even ten yards into the darkness that my stomach began a very familiar twist-and-roll. Someone Pushed was nearby, confirming my suspicions. The reflex to recoil and crumple with nausea was something I had learned to master just a few days into the Whiteout, but the sickly feeling was something I could never entirely ignore. What dim light the open door behind me cast was now non-existent so I had no choice but to close my eyes and focus on my other senses and that strange reaction to unreality to guide me. I could feel my mind and body slip into that harmonious state of focus, the unlocking of my full human potential. It was the only side-effect of whatever it was that I had become post-Whiteout that I enjoyed, even if the euphoria and calm it granted was a temporary thing, limited by my willpower and my endurance.

  It was that fortuitous timing that saved my life. The wire went unnoticed even as it cut into the leather of my racing boot. The sudden drag, though, triggered alarm bells in my head, bells that wouldn't have been on otherwise. Already committed to motion, I knew there was no way to stop now and no way to know just what this wire was attached to. Even with my now-accelerated thoughts, there was only moments to decide. Retreat or plunge forward, those were the only options I had.

  Before I put on this mask, I would have retreated. That time, maybe even that person, was long since gone. I changed my careful step forward into an all-out sprint. There was a brief pull, a sudden clatter of two small, metal objects, and then silence. I wasn't lulled into a sense of security; instead I ran faster into the blackness.

  To say I was a stranger to explosions at this point in my life would be a lie. The Battle of Washington, where the collective population of Push Heroes fought the same number of Pushcrooks, had more than a few I had been too intimate with for my liking. That experience, though, was not nearly so personal as this, as what had to be two grenades exploded in the darkness behind me.

  If I had been out in the open, I probably would have been perfectly fine. As it was with the explosion channeled by the claustrophobic tunnels, I was caught in the back by a concussive wave and a series of stinging punctures along my back. Most of the fragments seemed to have been caught up in the layers of my leather uniform, with only one nasty one cutting into my shoulder blade. My equilibrium thrown off, I stumbled as I continued to sprint, catching my foot in some unseen muck. Even with my mind and body in overdrive, there was no way to catch myself before I fell forward. The best I could manage was a tumble to soften the fall. I could hear crumbling masonry behind me as I shakily stood, not from the pain, a nonexistent thing when I was in my focused state, but from the concussion itself. It looked like I would have to find another way out.

  "Irene!" The first shout in my ear sounded distant through the ringing. The second one was much louder. "Irene!" My voice sounded funny as I started to speak, something that slowly fixed itself as my ears re
covered from the blast.

  "I'm fine. More or less, anyway." I kept a hand on the wall to steady myself. "Some kind of explosive booby trap, so yeah, your info was straight." A thought dawned. "Of course, if he, she, or it is here, they aren't alone any more."

  "Maybe you should extract now," Rachel said as the clickety-clack of keys came over the earbud. "I'm calling in Extinguisher and feeding him your last known location. I can't get a read on you now and -"

  "No time, I'm going on." I decided to leave out the cave-in. There was no need to get the over-cautious private detective even more eager to call in every hero in her files.

  "I'm still making the call," she added. "Be careful. You're too far down now for me to get a clear GPS signal, so if something goes wrong, it will be hard to find you." I began to move forward again as my senses cleared. I couldn't afford to be too cautious now or else I would be the proverbial sitting duck. With any chance of stealth blown as it was, I felt through the gear bag at my hip for my headlamp. As much as it lacked style, I might as well go forward with the ability to see. No doubt whatever was down here wasn't affected by the dark like I was.

  "Right. Over and out or whatever it is."

  The headlamp's LED flared into life. The dust was still settling from the explosion, forcing me to suppress a cough, but even so, I could see the tunnel continue forward with a slight descent. The humidity was getting worse, the walls slick and the exposed pipes dripping. There had been lighting run down here at one point, but either there was no power or no working bulbs left. Maybe it was some kind of maintenance tunnel? It hardly mattered right now. I pressed on at a jog, still slow enough to react to danger.

  It wasn't more than another two dozen yards before the tunnel made a sharp right turn. Even if my light was giving me away to some degree, I still felt the need to be cautious around the blind turn. The last thing I needed was to dash around it into a waiting bullet or fireball or some other esoteric insanity. I plastered myself to the right wall and carefully edged to the corner. My gut was clenched; I was very close to the source now. I darted my head around the corner quick as a flash to get a look at what laid ahead.

  There was only a short space of hall before a chamber. From my quick glance, I could see it was round, with several other connecting tunnels. A junction of some kind, maybe even an abandoned storage area, as I saw some old furniture and tools about. Most importantly, I observed three things. First and most obvious, more tunnels meant possible alternate routes to the surface for me and escape routes for the kidnapper. Second, there was a human form lying in a pile of what I figured to be old clothing. I couldn't tell if he or she was alive, but I knew they weren't Pushed instantly. The figure had be one of the victims. Last but not least, there was a large steamer trunk, looking a bit more intact than the rest of the artifacts in the room, that dominated the center of the chamber. There was dirt all around it in clumps on the stone floor and seeping out of the weakening boards. I had no clue what that could mean other than it might be large enough to hide the Pushcrook I was hunting. Unfortunately, I didn't catch any glimpse of what I was actually looking for. The clammy mist that seemed to collect in this low point of the tunnel didn't help at all.

  I stood there, deliberating for a split-second. There was nothing to be done for it. I had to find out if that person was alive or not and I couldn't do that here. I took a centering breath and slid out into the room.

  To my small surprise, I was not immediately impaled, shot, stabbed, or otherwise subjected to bodily harm. My senses, though, were still screaming at the presence of the Pushed, not just close but literally all around. I focused myself to keep calm and not lose concentration as I dashed past the steamer trunk to the fetal figure beyond it. I had not even gotten to one knee to check for a pulse before it was obvious this person was dead. It was a woman, skin chalk-white, though there was not quite the stench of decay I was expecting. Maybe she had just died recently; the last victim had only been gone two days and was a woman. I reached for the neck so as to turn the corpse and try to confirm my suspicions as to her identity, cursing under my breath at another life lost to the curse of the Whiteout. That's when I felt, even through my gloves, the two deep puncture wounds right on the artery.

  I barely had time to jump to the obvious conclusion as the air pressure suddenly shifted behind me. Something solid had just coalesced out of the mists. Accelerated reflexes took over as I tried to push up and off, at least to gain a little space from whatever was behind me, but it moved far faster. I was grabbed by the shoulders and hurled bodily through the air with inhuman force, careening straight into the far wall. I twisted as best I could to minimize the impact, but the collision sent a heavy shock through my back as I slid back down to the ground. I willed the pain into check as I struggled to get a clear view of my assailant.

  What I saw was what anyone with even the faintest knowledge of literature or movies would call a vampire. Male, once human, and dressed in blood-stained clothes, the sight of the pearly white skin, powerful physique, glowing red eyes, and knife-like fangs was frightful, if I had been capable of feeling fear at the time. What was far more shocking was what lay beneath the facade of unreality, something only myself and a very few others could see. Unlike the normal human at the heart of most of the Pushed, there was a corpse. A dead, pungently rotting man hung, puppeted by the unnatural forces around it. I couldn't be sure, but there was enough resemblance between the outage visage and the rotting flesh to make me think there had been few alterations. Not that I had much time to think about that. The vampiric thing was already moving.

  With no real options, I did the only thing I could do: I pushed to my feet and met the monstrosity head on.

  Chapter 2 Cross

  I had come to accept that it was nigh-impossible to prepare for anything in a world where everything was possible. Still, I had never even considered that I would find myself struggling with a dead body that was trying to kill me. One part of my swiftly-moving mind tried to formulate some plan of attack, observe some insight on how to not get myself killed. Surprisingly, it had nothing to offer me. After all, it was one thing dealing with normal Pushes. There was a mortal being inside and I was a nemesis to the unnatural. I could get at the vulnerable thing in the superhuman shell and ways to hurt a human, well, was something easy to formulate for a physiologist. How do you hurt a corpse?

  With my mind and body moving as one, I was faster than any normal person but, compared to this vampiric thing, I was moving in molasses. I had only moved three steps before it had crossed the dank chamber, lunging with grime-encrusted nails at my shoulders. Though faster in speed, I seemed to be competitive in terms of pure reflexes and found myself instinctively correcting for the creature's attack, slipping to one side of it before throwing a Hail-Mary cross at its head. The monster seemed to have no conception of self-preservation and moved into the blow in its efforts to snatch me. As with all the 'invulnerable' superhumans I had faced so far, I felt the slight resistance of the supernatural outer skin, then my fist carried through, powered by all the strength my body could put behind it.

  Punching the partially rotten corpse was, to that point, the most disgusting thing to ever happen in my life. My full strength tore into dead skin and flesh, knocking the jawbone completely free on one side. The air was filled with an explosion of new, fetid aromas as coagulated fluids and decomposing tissue went flying in a spray away from the impact. Any living creature would have been instantly incapacitated from shock and would certainly die without immediate medical attention from such an injury. Unfortunately, I wasn't fighting a living creature. The outer vampiric form matched the inner corpse, its phantom jaw being knocked off its hinges with a tearing of alabaster flesh, but it did not crumple. There was a brief guttural howl as it turned back to me. Already I could see that some force, the unnatural shell itself, was forcing the jaw back into place, just as the vampire's form seemed to regenerate in mere moments.

  The distraction of watching the biz
arre double-action was a stupid mistake. The vampire felt no pain, no more than I did, and in its animalistic rage simply barreled into me. It was only a few steps before my back slammed once more into the dripping brickwork except that this time, there was a supernaturally strong corpse limb jamming me into it. The vampire had pinned me to the wall by virtue of its rotting forearm across my chest. As my collarbones creaked, a blood-stained hand snaked up to grab my head, most likely to pry it aside to get at the blood vessels in my neck. Classic movie monster.

  This thing was far stronger than I was, but I still felt some relief when I pushed against its elbow with one hand. My other hand moved to intercept his groping hand. I didn't try to match its grip; I deflected the arm to one side, sending the corpse's fingertips burrowing into the bricks behind me. My accelerated thoughts cycled through my options. Any physical damage I did to the corpse, I assumed, would be temporary: the Push shell would simply force it back into position and carry on. It felt no pain, no shock ... frankly, it had no conventional vulnerabilities. At the same time, I could use whatever violence I needed to without fear of hurting a living person. What I needed to remember was every popular myth about vampires. The Whiteout stole its template for the universe not just from Eric Flynn's mind, but bits from every mind it touched. However the myths say the methods are to kill a vampire, that is most likely what this thing was vulnerable to.

  I ruled out sunlight immediately as I brought my free hand back down with a hammer punch right on the corpse's shoulder. As with the jaw, the power of my blow was enough to crush the entire shoulder socket, giving me a momentary gap of safety as the arm was pulled back into place by the regenerating vampiric form. Using that opening, I released my grip on its pinning forearm and delivered a short, sharp blow to the ribcage. My hand dug into the viscous mass of the monster's torso and I was infinitely grateful for my leather gloves and full-body uniform. With the vampire's equilibrium disrupted by the two structural breaches, I was freed of enough pressure to bring my legs up to my chest and violently thrust outward, sending the vampire flying across the room into the steamer trunk. The swollen wood burst from its bands and sent a torrent of earth spilling out to the ground. The monster was already stirring, white flesh knitting together and corpse parts being shoved back into place. I need real options and I needed them now. My brain, thankfully, delivered as I slid down the wall, catching myself in a crouch.