“When do we start”? she asked as her mother’s body language relaxed.
“When there is a sign. God shall show me when he is ready, and I shall follow his lead as always.”
Savannah felt rather than saw Summer Sloan’s change of expression but only watched the young woman out of the corner of her eye so as to alert her mother who had started to preach again about God and their great plan for the world.
Summer was sitting at the desk with several security monitors showing the lower cells in front of her. Something on one of the screens had caught her attention, but she was trying hard to recover and not show it on her face.
Savannah moved casually around the room until she had moved behind the desk and Summer.
Now she could see the screens while her mother couldn’t as her attention was on her monologue and her daughter.
On one of the screens, someone was being very naughty indeed, but she wasn’t about to tell, and apparently neither was Summer. That might be useful. Summer might not be the dull puppet that she’d assumed. If the young woman had her own agenda, then that might come in handy when the moment came. As far as Savannah was concerned, the more spanners being thrown into the works, the better, and the more chaos for Cynthia Arrow, the bigger the window for Savannah Greene.
----------
Jamie-Lyn found the lower-level cells quickly, mainly because the guards there were making a fair amount of noise as they goaded their prisoners.
“Come on, tough guy,” one of them yelled into the cell, “you’re supposed to be a killer, right? The big bad Crimson! What a joke!”
She edged around the corner, keeping to the shadows, and used the men’s diverted attention as a way to creep closer.
“I don’t even think it’s him,” the other guard sneered. “Look at this old fart! How the hell is he Crimson?”
“Maybe it’s his dad.” Guard one laughed.
“Or his granddad!” Guard two chuckled.
“Maybe you want to open up this door and find out,” the unmistakable voice of Crimson rang out.
“Oh, he speaks now!” guard two exclaimed. “Well now, aren’t we honoured? We were starting to think you’d died in there.”
“Yeah, of old age!” Guard one laughed.
“No, boys, I’m still ticking; just biding my time.”
“Oh yeah? Until what?” guard one said as he stared in angrily through the slit in the door. “What are you going to do, pops? Bore us to death with your war stories?”
“Good one,” guard two said as he joined his partner at the door. “Man, look at the state of him. I’m surprised she hasn’t put him out of his misery already. What good is this old bastard to anyone?”
“Well I’m a pretty good distraction.” Crimson smiled back.
“A distraction? For what?” guard two demanded.
“Do not turn around. And put your guns on the ground,” Jamie-Lyn ordered from behind.
“Oh just shoot them already,” Crimson called out.
“Not if I don’t have to. Not if they don’t make me. DON’T TURN AROUND!” she suddenly roared as guard one had started to turn towards her. “GUNS ON THE GROUND RIGHT NOW.”
“You don’t want to do this,” guard two said slowly.
“Oh just shoot him. Shoot them both!” Crimson called out.
“Shut up,” she yelled back at the hidden man inside the cell.
“Two quick finger pulls, that’s all it takes.” Crimson chuckled. “Come on, kid, you can do it.”
“Don’t listen to him, lady,” guard one said in a nervous voice.
“No, do listen to me,” Crimson yelled chuckling.
“Guns… on… the… ground… I won’t tell you again.”
“She won’t do it,” guard one offered. “She’s scared; she’s not gonna shoot.”
“Shut up, man!” guard two hissed.
“I’m going for it,” guard one replied as he started to turn again.
“You’re running out of time,” Crimson called out. “This one’s dumb enough to try it. He doesn’t know you, but he thinks he does.”
“Don’t do it,” Jamie-Lyn warned, but guard one wasn’t listening anymore.
She pulled the trigger and prayed that her aim was good enough. The bullet hit the man in his left buttock, and although she’d been aiming for his arm, she figured that this was good enough.
“She shot my ass!” guard one wailed as he fell to the floor to which Crimson laughed riotously.
Guard two, meanwhile, threw his gun aside and stood with his hands held up high.
“Okay, okay,” he gasped. “I’m unarmed.”
“Unlock the door,” she ordered, and he did as he was told as guard one continued to writhe in pain on the ground.
The door opened and Crimson came out of the darkness looking even worse than when she’d last seen him. Someone had given him a working over, adding a fresh set of bloody marks to his face, and one eye was now swollen almost shut.
“I didn’t want to,” guard two said as he stepped back and away from the emerging man. “I was just following orders. You know how it is, right?”
“Of course.” Crimson smiled coldly and Jamie-Lyn had a bad feeling, especially when guard two made the mistake of relaxing.
Crimson’s hand was a blur of rapid movement as he swung out with a rock-hard sideways chop to the man’s throat. The sound of breaking bone was sickening as the man’s larynx collapsed and he sank to the ground gasping for air as his face turned blue.
Crimson raised a boot over guard one who was still on the ground and brought it down hard on the man’s upturned face.
Jamie-Lyn turned away as the man’s cries of pain fell silent mercifully quickly until there was only the wet, bone-crunching stomp of Crimson’s boot.
She waited until he had finished before she turned back around.
“What, no lecture?” he sneered as he wiped his boot against the wall to shake off bits of skin and bone fragments.
“Nope,” she replied. “I’m all out.”
“Good, then we might actually stand a chance here.”
He dragged the two bodies into the cell and removed anything useful including their clothing.
He threw one set to her after checking them over for the smaller size and they both stripped and dressed quickly.
“Okay, where do we start?” she asked.
“Link is that way.” He pointed to the right. “I can still smell the kid’s shampoo even though he hasn’t washed with it for a while, but there’s still a trace of butter coconut.” He sniffed as if to confirm.
“CJ?”
“He doesn’t have any hair.”
“You know, I never could tell when you were joking.”
“I know,” he replied without a smile, leaving her none the wiser. “You find somewhere to hide while I get Link, then the two of you get the hell out here.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Now I know you must be joking!”
“Not even a little. I’ll get Link and then the two of you get going.”
“No way.”
“You really think that you’re going to be any help around here?”
“I just got your ass out of a cell!”
“Fair enough.” He shrugged after a moment’s consideration. “But this is going to get bloody.”
“Yeah, I’d guessed that,” she replied, nodding towards the two dead guards they’d just dragged into the cell.
“I can’t watch your back, Jamie-Lyn. Look, I’m all busted up inside and I don’t know how much time I’ve got left to do what needs to be done.”
“And what’s that?”
“Kill every last motherfucker in this place before I burn it to the ground,” he replied without a single trace of emotion in his voice or his expression.
“Then let me help, let us help! Come with me. We’ll get Link together then we’ll find CJ. The four of us are better than you on your own. Maybe we can find wha
t’s dampening CJ’s powers or yours for that matter.”
“There’s nothing’s dampening me.”
“What?”
“There’s nothing affecting me, kid. I’m just old. Whatever CJ gave me 30-odd years ago, well, it’s wearing off, running down. I’ve known that for some time now. It’s almost gone… I can feel it in my bones.”
“Then that’s all the more reason for us to stick together then, isn’t it?”
“I made Doc a promise,” he said quietly.
“I know, but how about for once you let someone else help? You know what,” she added before he could reply, “I’m not even asking. Let’s go before I shoot you myself for being such an idiot. I swear to God, this whole macho self-sacrifice thing is bullshit. How about for once we make a plan, stick to it and work together? That way, no one has to throw themselves into the fire…”
Crimson could only watch on as she started to walk away before he hurried to catch up.
“…this is why teenage boys wouldn’t read comic books about all-female teams, especially if they were properly dressed. I mean, don’t those cartoon women ever catch colds walking around like strippers?” she continued. “There would no tear-jerking finale, no one diving in front of bullets and dying in their friend’s arms. Make a plan and work together. I mean, is that really so hard?”
Crimson only nodded as he followed. He didn’t need his failing enhanced senses to know that this was a one-way conversation.
----------
Cynthia Arrow watched on as the two crewmen from the TV station set about their business setting up.
Her first instinct had been to go big, to set a stage high and wide enough to make the entire world stand up and take notice, to set a scene so grand as to rival the glorious grandeur of the very heavens themselves. But now she knew that to be wrong. This wasn’t about showmanship. This wasn’t about bright lights and dancing clowns. This was about the message of God, and that would be enough… that was always enough.
Time was running short now and the end was finally in sight. After decades of struggle, she was about to cross the finish line. God’s plan would be shown to the world and they would fall to their knees in reverence and beg for his forgiveness. She was just waiting for the sign.
“Everything is in place,” a man’s voice said from behind.
“Very good, Number Two,” she replied as Mason Thomas stood a few deferential paces behind her.
He shifted nervously from foot to foot and she knew exactly why.
“It was unavoidable,” he said quietly.
“You think to know better than me? Than him?”
“He… attacked me. I had no choice.”
“I understand that you have paid a terrible price for your service. You had to lie down with the enemy. You have soiled yourself for his path, for his will, for his glory. You should not feel unclean, Number Two; you should feel proud of the sacrifices that you have made.”
“I do feel proud,” he lied, and they both knew it.
She felt the warm and familiar tingle under her jacket and didn’t need to look to know that the Angel Blade was glowing there.
What no one else knew, not even her own daughter, was that the Angel Blade was her conduit to God, her staff of Moses, her lightning rod, her diviner. She followed the blade whenever it called to her and she knew two things to be absolute: the blade was never wrong and it never failed.
The two crewmen began to feel something in the air, and they stopped their busy work to look over. She couldn’t blame them. Whenever the call came, there was an electricity that surrounded her, a higher power cascading down through her bones as the Lord spoke through her.
She turned to her Number Two, and while he had undoubtedly served her well, her mind was already drifting towards a suitable replacement.
The blade was hot in her hand and felt as always like it belonged there. It was a righteous weapon, a holy force of good, for good, and now it went to work.
Mason Thomas didn’t even feel a whisper of wind as the blade slipped into his chest like he was made of paper.
Cynthia caught his head as he sagged and helped lower him gently to the concrete ground of the hangar where he lay gasping for air.
“It’s okay,” she said as she knelt down beside him. “This is not punishment, this is your reward,” she reiterated as she pushed the knife deeper until it pierced his heart and he finally lay still.
She closed his eyes before standing back up and slipping the Angel Blade back inside her jacket where it pulsed against her skin for several moments before it finally started to cool and sleep again.
“Get on with your work,” she called out to the two crewmen without needing to turn around and face them. “It’s almost time.”
----------
Jamie-Lyn stepped over the bodies of two more guards and took a set of keys from one of them, hurrying over so as not to be burdened with a mental photograph of a man’s brain blown out of the back of his head.
She knew that Crimson must be hurting as he was only using a gun now. There was no sign of the balletic figure who danced through a battlefield wielding knives; now he was strictly a point-and-shoot man.
“You okay?” she asked Link as she unlocked the cell door before rushing in to untie him.
He looked surprisingly unharmed with no fresh wounds visible.
“They work you over?” Crimson asked from the doorway as he leant against it for support.
“No.”
“Bloody figures,” Crimson replied, shaking his head.
“Ever think if you didn’t go around pissing people off all the time, then they might not want to bash your head in?” Link asked with a grin.
“Yeah well, where’s the fun in that?” Crimson answered as he threw the other man a semiautomatic pistol taken from one of the guards. “I don’t suppose I can expect any sense from you and watch you and Jamie-Lyn get the hell out of here?”
“Where’s CJ?” Link said, both asking and answering a question.
“Stubborn idiots,” Crimson muttered to himself. “Okay, I’ll find the big guy. Look, I move quicker on my own,” he said, holding a hand up to quiet the expected protests from Jamie-Lyn. “Or at least quieter,” he admitted.
“Right then, we need to find a computer,” Link said to her. “I want some time with the drive.”
“Wait, you’ve still got it?” she exclaimed. “Where is it? Where did you hide it?”
“You really don’t want to know,” he replied awkwardly.
“But they must have searched you?” she pressed.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But…”
“It’s safe, okay?”
“But I don’t see where you could have stashed it?”
“Jesus Christ, it was up his ass!” Crimson snapped irritably.
“Oh,” was all she could say as Link looked away embarrassed.
“Yeah…,” he trailed off.
chapter 41
SHOWTIME
“What exactly is she going to do?” Simon Clermont asked Dennison nervously.
“I cannot say, sir,” the aide replied honestly. “All I know is that Ms Arrow has secured a block of television coverage. Beyond that, I could not say.”
The two men were sitting in a plush ornate private chamber at the secure location where the prime minister was being temporarily housed after his residence had been attacked and severely damaged.
“I don’t like this, Dennison, I don’t like it one bit.”
“I understand, sir, but we are rather flying blind here I’m afraid.”
“Why doesn’t the daughter know what’s happening? Or is she just not telling us? Jesus, what the hell have I gotten myself into here?” Clermont sighed heavily.
“The polls are clear, sir. Projections are for you to increase your majority… dare I say, a landslide victory?”
“If I don’t end up in jail first!”
“I hardly think that it will come to that,
sir.”
“Easy for you to say from the cheap seats, Dennison. It’s my neck on the block here, don’t forget that.”
“Of course not, sir.” Dennison smiled back, his face never breaking into any kind of genuine emotion.
“Whatever that woman has got planned, I find it hard to believe that it’s anything good.”
“No, sir.”
“You got me into this, Dennison… don’t think that I won’t remember that.”
“After we win, I would certainly hope that you wouldn’t, sir.”
“So it’s come down to this, has it? Death or glory, victory or a prison cell.”
“It would appear so, sir.”
“You know you really are a colossal prick, Dennison, right?”
“Indeed, sir.” The aide smiled back.
“What time is this nonsense supposed to start?”
“A few more minutes, sir.”
“Well then, get comfy because whatever happens, I guess we’re in it together until the end.”
“The very end, sir.” Dennison beamed, thinking all the time of course that there was no way in hell he’d be sticking around if things went wrong. Not a chance.
----------
Crimson moved as quickly and as stealthily as he could manage, which now, of course, took great effort. His insides felt like they were rattling around without cohesive binding, and the pain from his multitude of wounds had not subsided like they always had before.
He remembered now that this is what it felt like to be normal, and he did not welcome the return.
CJ had never given off any kind of scent for him to trace even when his senses were working at full capacity. Now, he was searching in the dark.
The one thing that he knew to be true, however, was that if you had several high-value prisoners, then you used the most resources on the biggest prize.
Slipping through the shadows of the lowest level under the hangar, he found the overpowering scent now of several of Cynthia’s soldiers, their musk flooding the narrow hallway in the enclosed space.
He quickly found the cell where CJ must have been taken, but it was empty, devoid of both prisoner and guards; whatever they had planned for the alien, it was already starting.
Capes Page 57