Faith of a Monster Killer: Killing Forever Book 3

by David J. Phifer

  I swerved right, scraping the side into the tree. It took off the mirror and Redmann with it. The jeep bounced as Redmann tumbled underneath us.

  KERTHUD. THUD. THUD.

  The problem was I didn’t see him in my rear-view. I should have left him in my dust—

  KERCHINK. CRUNCH. THWUMP.

  Something banged under the vehicle. What the hell is it now? Is he clinging underneath the—

  SHHHLINK!

  An insect blade spiked up through the floor into my right foot. As the claw push up, I pushed down onto the gas. I couldn’t stop now.

  Another claw-spike sliced through the floor between Maya’s legs. She screamed profanities and shot the floor with the Glock.

  BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

  My watch told me we had thirty seconds before the nuke went off and blew us to Hell.

  If Redmann got outside the veil, there was no telling what he’d be capable of in the real world…

  Infecting humanity with Primitives eggs.

  Making the human race a hive mind.

  Or turning people into dangerous monsters like him.

  20 seconds.

  Pushing at least 150 mph, I was practically flying. I sped toward a gigantic boulder that was on the roadside up ahead, half-buried underground. That was a bad thing if you don’t want a life-ending speed bump. But it’s a great thing if you want to scrape a dick-head interdimensional dark god off your underbelly.

  BEEP. BEEP.

  10 seconds.

  I plowed over the boulder at 170 mph.

  It slammed the jeep’s front axle, ripping off the wheels and demolishing the underbelly. The jeep caught on the rock, throwing us through the air. We twirled at Mach speed like a comet tumbling entering the atmosphere.

  3 seconds.

  The jeep collided with the earth and toppled over the ground, spinning like a broken Ferris wheel at top speed.

  When we settled, the jeep was upside down. I crawled out as fast as my arms could take me. The question was: did we pass the veil? Did we make it?

  0 seconds.

  The nuclear bomb detonated. The earth shook. And the veil was still open.

  Serena and Sam stood at the veil’s edge, chanting a spell.

  I shouted, “Close the veil. Now—”

  The explosion was miles away, yet much too close for my liking. Flames devastated the Island. The destruction charged at us with devastating intent.

  Serena slapped her palms together with a loud chant. The flames vanished as the sound caught up a moment later. The veil disintegrated and the Island disappeared. A gust of hot wind blew at us, spraying dust over the area.

  I stumbled toward my blue ‘69 chevy and slammed the opened hood. “Sorry, boy,” I said, patting the hood. “Didn’t mean to leave your bits dangling in the wind.” I threw open the door and grabbed a cooler from the floor of the passenger seat.

  Pulling out two syringes and four vials of Forever Blood, I made my way to the overturned jeep.

  I went to the rear of the vehicle. Maya was unconscious. I pulled her out and gave her a shot to the arm. As Augie pulled the unconscious Zac from the back seat, I handed him two shots and a syringe for good measure.

  “You good?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but you ain’t,” he said. “You look like you should have been buried a week ago.”

  I plunged the syringe into my leg. My broken bones mended. My torn muscles reattached. And the multiple wounds sealed up. In a few seconds, I felt like a million-dollar lottery ticket on top of a billion dollar stack of cash.

  Serena grinned with pride. “And here I thought I was going to get a good tan.”

  I turned to Sam. “How did you know to be here?”

  He smiled. “After my first dream-walk with you, I had a conversation with my older, wiser self.”

  “He didn’t end his life after all,” I said, thinking out-loud. “But I heard the shot…”

  “That poor clock you love will never be the same.”

  “So he believed me.”

  “Enough to make the attempt to contact me.” Sam looked up at the sun. “After our chat, he still found his way to a bullet.”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder. “It worked. That’s all matters.”

  Serena sauntered over to us. “What are you two whispering about?”

  My eyes stayed on Sam. “You never told her?”

  “Nah,” he said. “I told her I had a hunch you needed help. She would hate it if she knew this was your idea.”

  Serena crossed her arms. “What’s going on?”

  I cleared my throat. “Ask me again in twenty years.”

  Serena glared at Sam with an accusing eye. “I don’t get it.”

  Sam shrugged. “He’s being cryptic,” he said, dusting himself off. “What else is new?”

  I studied the spot where the veil thinned. “The veil won’t come back? If there’s radiation poisoning on the other side…”

  “We shifted the frequency,” Sam said. “It won’t be coming back. It’s sealed for good.”

  I glanced at Serena. “I’m sure glad you didn’t have to use your secret spell and travel to San Diego.”

  Serena scowled at me with a puzzled look. “How do you know that spell? It’s a secret. I never told anyone about that.”

  I grinned. “I’m cryptic, remember?”

  She scoffed. “You’re an ass is what you are.”

  SKREEECH!

  Metal twisted and tore apart as the upturned jeep tilted and crashed down. Redmann jumped from under it. His claw-blade pierced Serena’s shoulder on his way to me. As I reached for the Beretta, his claw sliced into my abdomen.

  He raised me off my feet and snarled. “You could have been a god—”

  KABAM!

  His head exploded in a burst of black and purple blood. Maya marched from behind my truck, both hands on the Howdah pistol. All four barrels were smoking.

  Maya sneered, “I’ve had enough gods for one day.”

  Redmann lay on the ground, headless. Maya kept the gun on him. We were all waiting for more limbs to sprout from his severed neck. But nothing did.

  With a hole in my gut, I coughed blood. I got to my feet and stumbled toward Maya, setting my hand on top of the barrel.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “He’s not coming back.” She lowered the pistol and let go, letting me take it from her grip. She wrapped her arms around me and sunk her face into my chest.

  I let go of Maya and crashed to my knees. She tried to help, but I held her back.

  “Wait for it,” I said. The Forever Blood was still in my system.

  ZZZWIPP. THWIPP. ZIPP.

  In seconds, the muscle and flesh stitched back together and the wound in my gut vanished like it was never there.

  Serena held her arm. Blood dribbled down her hand. “Well?”

  I scowled. “Well, what?”

  “Who do I have to blow to get some Forever Blood around here?”

  “Who needs it?”

  “I do. I’m dying here.”

  “It’s a paper cut.”

  “It’s to the bone—”

  “At least you still have your arm.”

  “Not all of us can be Rambo,” she said. “Do you have more Forever Blood or not?”

  “It’s hardly worth using up a vial for,” I said. “Throw a band-aid on it and call it good.”

  “I’ll be disfigured for life.”

  “Outsides will finally match the insides, right?”

  She scoffed something awful. “You do realize that this witch just saved your life? And all of Chicago? I’m kind of the hero here.” I looked to the sky and pondered for a moment until she yelled, “Solomon Ivy!”

  “Fine,” I said. “Look on the floor of my passenger seat.”

  “Ugh. You’re impossible.” Holding her arm, she stomped toward my truck to get a shot of the healing agent.

  Sam asked, “Was that really necessary?”

  I grinned. “It definitively was.”


  He smiled and nodded. “I wholeheartedly agree.”

  I stared at the empty field in front of us. The landscape showed no mountains. No war bunkers. Only Chicago’s skyline on the other side. I never thought I’d be grateful to see this shit-hole again.

  On the far end of the field stood the silhouette of someone watching us. Close to the city’s edge, the figure was obsessed with us. Was it an innocent bystander? A curious lookey-loo who witnessed us coming through the veil and blow a monster’s head off?

  I squinted, trying to get a better look at him. He wore a dark outfit and a black baseball cap. Combined with the sun throwing a shadow over him, I couldn’t make out his face. But he did one thing that upset me.

  One thing that pissed me off and made me want to kick a baby in the face.

  One thing that made me want to curse it all and poke a nail through my eye…

  He gave a two-finger salute.

  Chapter 35

  Heart of Stone

  I stared at the city through the window. I tired of how evil had so much will and purpose to destroy the world when the so-called heroes had very little will to save it.

  Until people stepped up, let go of the ideas of a normal life and became the kind of warriors we need, I couldn’t relax for one minute, one second, until all these evil bastards were put down.

  Dr. Madeline Shaw crossed her legs and sighed. She did that when she was frustrated and felt like she was wasting her time. Luckily, I didn’t have a session with her very often. In fact, almost never.

  We were in her office space in downtown Chicago not long after escaping Redmann’s Island.

  Shaw popped a tic-tac in her mouth. “We’ve been talking for over an hour, Solomon, and every time I offer my expertise, you correct me with your own biased, albeit astute, insights into the advice you’d prefer me to give, making my professional opinion inconsequential.”

  “Because you’re not telling me what I need to hear,” I said, feeling the warmth of the sun against my face. “Only what you think I want to hear.”

  Truth be told, she couldn’t give me any insight I hadn’t already processed a thousand times in my head, from every angle, from every point of view. Much less give me any advice I would adhere to anyway. But she was the only intellectual equal I could talk to. At least, the only one I didn’t want to kill.

  She adjusted the horn-rimmed glasses on her small, delicate face. “No, Solomon, you just don’t think there’s anything you need to hear.”

  With my hands behind my back, I turned from the window. “I needed to talk with someone…”

  CRUNCH. CRUNCH.

  She bit a tic-tac between her teeth. “As usual, you obviously don’t want my counsel. You’re as responsive as a corpse. I’d get better participation from a brain-damaged monkey. At least he’d get me a banana when I tell him to fetch. So if you’re not going to listen to me, why did you really come here?”

  I sat on the couch across from her. “The Presence—”

  “Is dead,” she said. “Aside from this Munsher person you believe The Presence is possessing. Are you concerned he’ll take over the city with his hive mind?”

  “I don’t think so. The portal is closed, cutting him off from his universal intelligence. If he can possess others, it would be a small number, limited to his one consciousness. I’ll find him. And send Munsher and The Presence back to Hell.”

  I shifted in my seat. Shaw raised an eyebrow. Her microexpessions gave her away. I knew she sensed my unease. And she knew I knew.

  “The concern I’m sensing in you isn’t like you, Solomon. You’d sooner blow up the world before letting an ounce of worry enter your body.”

  “I can’t let that shit in. It affects everything. When I let weakness in, people die. Good people.”

  “You’ve always been a man on a mission. Relentless…”

  “It gets the job done.”

  “My point is, I would trust no other person with the life of my child if they were in danger. If I did have a little rug-rat to save, that is. I would count on no one more than you to do it.”

  “Are you telling me you’re pregnant? That would only add to the pile of shit on my plate.”

  “No, Sol. I’m trying to tell you that I’m sensing your mission has softened. It feels interrupted.” She scrunched her nose and shook her head. “And why, when I use my abilities to sense your emotional state, am I getting the image of a firefly with a pick axe buzzing around a heart of stone?”

  “I need you to get rid of it,” I said. “Use your empathic powers to destroy what’s stirring in me. What’s growing. In here.” I tapped my chest. I got up and paced around the room.

  Shaw got to her feet and straightened her skirt. “You want me to get rid of it? Well, maybe I like it. It’s a new look for you.”

  “I can’t do my job while it’s there.” I peered at her from the corner of my eye.

  “Most people long to feel it. I’m one of them. Society cherishes it. People worship it.”

  “I’m not most people,” I said, walking to the large wall of bookshelves. “I can’t afford to make personal decisions in the field. People will get killed.”

  “You think you’ll lose your edge.”

  “Emotions affect the mind. A building can’t stand if the foundation grows soft.”

  Shaw moved up behind me as my eyes glazed over the hundreds of books. “So you’re asking me to do what, exactly?”

  I turned to her with a stern gaze. “I need you to destroy the feelings in my heart for Maya Hayes.”

  Shaw popped in several tic-tacs and smiled. “What kind of feelings are we talking about here? Do you want to jump her bones or tuck her into bed?”

  “She’s a child. Immature, impetuous, and lacking self-awareness to such a degree that I want to stab my eyes out with the demon blade. But she has a fire inside her that I respect.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I want to keep her safe, that’s the problem. Hunters hunt. That’s what we do. A soldier can’t kill on the battlefield if he’s worried about his kid getting hurt.”

  “She’s like a daughter to you.” With a clipboard in hand, she marked something in her notes. “Filling the hole left by your son, no doubt. It may be one of the more normal things about you at the moment, Solomon. Trust me, these feelings make you human. Don’t take them for granted. I think they’re rather healthy—”

  “For a civilian,” I snapped. “For a family man with a wife, two kids, and a dog. Not for a hunter. Not for me.”

  Shaw bit her lip, deep in thought. “I can practically taste the emotional up-swell in you. It’s a tornado of conflict. You’re in absolute turmoil over this girl.”

  I turned away and moved back toward the couch and chairs. “You’re exaggerating. It’s just a values conflict. One that needs to be rectified.”

  “There’s nothing dangerous about this feeling. Welcome to the human race, Mr. Ivy.”

  I swallowed. “Blackwell. Poe. Munsher. The Presence. Zombie assassins. Shape-shifting psychopaths. Along with a long list of other monsters, entities, and evil sons of bitches who want me dead—”

  “With your track record, I think your list of enemies is rather short these days.”

  “I’m used to looking over my shoulder. It’s a lifestyle. Taking risks in battle is calculated. Pragmatic. I can’t have sentiment on my mind. I can’t worry about anyone. I need to stay sharp.”

  “You know, I hear it’s quite okay to love the people in your life, Solomon.”

  “Love is for the weak and the dead.”

  She sighed the sighs of all sighs. “Some of us would kill to feel a love like that. Some of us already have.”

  “If you can package it in a bottle, I’ll give it to you with my blessing and a bow on top.” I threw daggers from my eye. “This needs to be dealt with while it’s still manageable. Nip this in the bud now. Before it’s too late.”

  “You don’t see this as a sign that ma
ybe you should retire from hunting? Take it easy? Live a normal life?”

  “No.”

  “It could lead to a whole new you.”

  “I like being me.”

  Shaw sighed and pulled her clipboard to her chest. “Sometimes nature makes us re-evaluate what’s important to us. To evolve us into something new.”

  I cast a sour look. “I’ve had enough evolution lately. I want the feelings gone.”

  “So you can be a bitter, cranky sourpuss again?”

  “So I can be effective.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “Wouldn’t Claude be a better person to contact about this? He is a telepath, after all.”

  “I chose you.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yes. Besides, I couldn’t reach him. I called him three times.”

  Her face dropped. “I see,” she said, brushing her fingers through her bangs. “I’m an empath, Solomon, not a miracle worker. I can’t destroy synaptic pathways in the brain, only energize them.”

  “You can focus your power and re-associate the neural paths to other memories.”

  She tapped a pen on her chin, contemplating my idea. “Associating old negative feelings to the new ones. We re-train your brain. Like Pavlov’s dogs. That could work…”

  I grinned. “See? I knew I chose the right person for the job.”

  “Touché.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I’m always up for a challenge. Let’s do it.” She jumped to her feet, seemingly excited. Which was rare for her. “Would you like something before we begin? A coffee with a splash of vodka perhaps? I think you need it.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. “But hold the coffee.”

  DING DONG.

  Shaw had an old-style doorbell because she thought it made her seem normal. As obnoxious as it was, she was right. I hated the sound. It got on my nerves.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Are you expecting someone?”

  “A client,” she said. “But he’s twenty minutes early.” She stuffed the clipboard in her bag by the chair. “Help yourself in the kitchen. You know where everything is.”

  I headed to the kitchen. Shaw straightened her skirt and speed-walked around the corner and down the hall to the front door.