"Why would someone send me such a thing?"
While still looking in the microscope, she said, "Considering they look like they're designed to penetrate you, I'd guess that someone wants you dead. I'll need a drop of your blood to test that theory though. Is that possible?"
"With some work. Get a slide." My claws extended and I screwed a forefinger back and forth, digging into my arm. Karen retrieved a glass slide and held it ready, grimacing as I worked.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
"No. I only feel what I want to feel. What makes it harder is that I continually heal. It's like trying to fill a cup with a hole in the bottom." I sped up and a small, circular scrape appeared, but nothing more.
"This might not be possible," she said, but with one last effort, a small dot of purplish-blue blood slipped out.
"Hurry, put the slide on it before it heals and goes away." She quickly pressed the glass on my arm, and then pulled it away.
"Your blood looks severely oxygen deprived," she said, looking at the bluish smudge.
"My breathing isn't functional, it's part of the disguise, so I suspect there's no oxygen in it. Actually, I suspect it's not blood at all."
"Amazing." She removed the Ebola-contaminated slide and placed it in a sealed biohazard bag designated for burning. "I want to record this." After pressing a few buttons on the computer next to the microscope, she retrieved the vial of disease. I gently grabbed her hand.
"Shouldn't you have a sealed biohazard suit on?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied, but continued for the vial anyway. "Just left click the mouse once to start recording when I tell you to."
The bloodstained slide sat on the table in front of her. She pulled the small cork from the vial of Ebola-like disease carefully, now aware of the danger, and withdrew a miniscule amount with a dropper. After setting the vial down, she released the fluid from the dropper onto the slide that held my blood. With quick professionalism, she corked the vial once again and then placed the slide into the microscope.
"Now!" she said. I clicked the mouse, starting the computer to record.
Karen put her face to the eyepieces while I watched the computer monitor. The virus was already swarming through the blood, and using its silver-tipped daggers, quickly penetrated what looked like individual cells. Soon, there was no sign of the small worm-like entities, all having vanished into the cells. Everything seemed quiet, and just as we thought the show was over, small bubbles began to emerge on the surface of the cells. Seconds after that, the bubbles began to rupture, and then the reaction grew even more furious as entire cells started exploding like popcorn.
"Incredible!" Karen said, still looking into the microscope. "They're not replicating, just destroying the cells. You must not have a cell structure they can work with."
I looked down at the microscope and saw the flimsy plastic cover over the sample slide vibrating.
"Get back." I pulled her by the shoulder. She looked confused for a second until she saw the violent reaction occurring on the slide from outside the eyepieces. Quickly she stood and we both backed away. There was a loud crack and the glass slide fell in two pieces onto the table.
"Oh my God!" she exclaimed.
"That definitely wasn't a friend who sent that," I said.
"If you had drunk it…"
"It wouldn't be good."
"We have to get out of here," she said. "That was not regular Ebola, but I'm sure it's still deadly to both of us. I'll have to decontaminate this place." We stepped towards the door.
"Samael did this," I said.
"Who?"
"One like me. He's the only one who could think of something so sadistic."
"Well, it looks like he's back. Why do you think…?" I stopped listening to her, suddenly focused on new sounds.
"Do you hear that?" I asked.
"What?" She listened. "I don't hear anything."
"It sounds like the shuffling of a lot of people, and voices yelling." Then I heard something louder—a bullhorn-amplified voice claiming that the FBI was on scene.
"I heard that!" she exclaimed.
Chapter 15
"Lori!" I cried out, realizing that she would be in the heart of the commotion coming from the manufacturing side of the facility.
My cell phone vibrated. I snatched it out of my pocket, thankful it was her, and deciphered the hastily written text message, "Cops looking 4 u! I'm ok. Get out!"
"Karen is coming 4 u. C u soon," I texted back and then slipped the cell into my pocket.
"What do we do?" Karen asked with an edge of panic in her voice.
"I think the same guy that sent me the death in a bottle gift, told the cops about my boss." I paused, a new thought occurring to me. "God damn it!"
"What?"
"They would think his wife is missing, not knowing who she really is. They probably think I took her, and have been following us hoping I'll lead them to her."
"This is not good," she said, eyeing the hallway just outside the door nervously.
"Karen, I'm sorry but I need to go. I have to get money because I'll need a damn good lawyer. Can you stay with Lori until she can reach her mother? They'll question you both and then probably let you go."
"Absolutely."
"I'll get a lawyer and turn myself in tomorrow or day after at the latest. Tell them that."
"Okay. Good luck." I started out the door. "Mike?" I stopped and turned around. She came up to me and planted a gentle kiss on my lips. She pulled back and looked into my yellow eyes. "Be careful."
"I will, and I'm sorry. I warned you I came with complications, but tell them I'm innocent."
"I will. Now go before it's too late."
I raced out the door intending to use the emergency exit I had come through previously, but it was too late, just as Karen feared. Several black-clad SWAT members stood in the hallway, effectively blocking my path. When they saw me come out, they instantly leveled their machine guns on me.
"FBI, don't move!" one yelled. "Down on your belly now!"
I looked through the open lab door and saw a horrified Karen. I gave her a nod and then shot straight up, crashing through the ceiling and out into the open air.
A bright light flashed close, and then my head hit a metal pipe hard enough to bend it into a forty-five degree angle. Instantly I realized that it was the strut of a helicopter, which was shining its searchlight on the grounds below. I watched as it tilted sideways and then started to spin out of control.
"Fuck!" I screamed in frustration. I caught up to the rapidly descending craft, grabbed it by the remaining good strut, and stabilized it. Below, onlookers gawked at me, wide-eyed and pointing. Camera flashes burned, lighting up the area like a seventies disco.
So much for a clean getaway.
Satisfied that the pilot had regained control, I let go and flew away into the night, no doubt leaving behind a chorus of wonderment mixed with disbelief.
I turned north, heading for the old cemetery where I had hid an emergency fund when I first came to America. I had a problem though. It was almost a hundred miles away, and flying used a lot of fuel. I would have to stop and feed about every twenty miles, but I knew if I did that, then public opinion would turn against me very quick. Instead, I flew the first five miles, landed in a mall parking lot, and began looking for a car.
The movies always make hotwiring a vehicle look so easy, but I didn't have a clue how to do it. This forced me to find a vehicle with keys in it, no easy feat in the age of paranoia. For the greater part of an hour, I discreetly walked the parking lot, looking in windows and trying doors. I felt confident that any second would bring the police, called by someone who spied my suspicious activity. Surprisingly, they didn't come.
Just as I was about to give up the hunt, an easy-looking target pulled into a space the next row over. My potential ride came in the form of a 1969 four-door Impala. It took several tries for the two hippy-looking men that rode in it to park straight, and then whe
n they got out, a cloud of smoke trailed after them. Hunkered down low behind a pickup, I watched as they staggered into the mall, most likely heading straight for the food court. I stood and casually strode over to the vehicle.
It was a rust bucket to be sure, but I had no choice. Peering into the window, I was dismayed to see an assortment of fast-food bags, candy-bar wrappers, and soda cans littering the floor and strewn across torn vinyl seats. And I was once considered a god, I thought with more than a hint of sarcasm. I tried the handle, happy to find it unlocked. The car itself was a solid deterrent to theft, so I wasn't surprised. I closed the door and reached for the ignition with a silent prayer. I felt along the entire column, but there were no keys.
"Damn it!" I yelled into air that reeked with a skunk-like smell.
I pulled both visors down, hoping for a hidden spare key. Nothing. I reached under the seat, but again no joy. Ready to give up and make my way to the cemetery by feeding on homeless people, I went for the door handle but stopped when I spied a pocket in the door. With next to nothing in the way of hope, I reached in and felt around. I felt a piece of metal and pulled it out. It was a bottle opener, with a key attached to one end of it.
"Yes!" I blurted as if I had discovered King Tutankhamun's tomb.
I slipped the well-worn key into the ignition and turned. The tired sounding engine cranked and came to life.
Smiling, I put a foot on the brake and eased the column shifter into reverse. Everything seemed okay so I let off the brakes, but the car didn't move. Then, with a heartbreaking ca-chunk, the transmission finally shifted but immediately started slipping. The car almost died. I revved it to keep it going, during which the transmission decided to catch. The rear tires chirped and the car lurched backwards. I hit the brakes and stopped with a bang against the bumper of a car parked in the row behind me. With yet another curse, I slammed the car into drive, waited for the tranny to catch, and then made my way to the mall exit.
At every stoplight, the old Impala wheezed and threatened to cut off. I rode the brake and the gas to keep it going, and was grateful that the highway was close by. How a stoned person had managed to drive the car was beyond me.
Once I entered the highway onramp and pressed down on the gas pedal, the engine smoothed out and I felt a surge of confidence. The gas gauge indicated half-a-tank, and even at ten miles-per-gallon, I felt like that would be enough.
The little needle on the gas gauge still read half-a-tank when I rolled to a stop, out of gas, thirty miles from my destination, which also happened to be the nearest town.
It was approaching midnight when I got out of the car, intending on thumbing it the rest of the way to conserve energy. The road was a main route for long-distance haulers, but traffic was light at such a late hour.
Before this fiasco, I had envisioned retrieving a fortune and sailing off to some beautiful island with my daughter and maybe even Karen. Instead, I was hitchhiking to get some money in order to keep my ass out of prison. Although if they did somehow find me guilty, I knew that I would not willingly stay in prison for long. It would be quite a mess though, being a fugitive until all current law enforcement died from old age and the media had forgotten me.
After walking half-a-mile with my thumb out, a mid-eighties Camaro passed by, and then squealed to a halt on the side of the road. I jogged up to it with a smile. The passenger window came down and something sparkling flew out towards me. There was a loud BANG! I looked down at my feet where the cherry bomb had exploded and saw the front of one shoe blown open.
"Get a fucking job you bum!" a teenage boy yelled out. The rear tires of the car started spinning, showering me with gravel. A beer bottle flew out the window and shattered on the ground, while the boy flipped me the bird as the car pulled away. I was pissed.
Chapter 16
Rage was rarely an emotion that I indulged in, but I was at a breaking point. I sprang into the sky and sailed after the fleeing car. Soon it cruised below me, doing at least seventy. Turning my feet forward, I let myself fall and crashed rudely through the glass hatchback. I landed neatly in the small backseat, now littered with squares of tempered safety glass.
"Thanks for the ride," I hissed.
The car swerved as the two adolescents turned to look at me. I leaned forward and let my pearly fangs hang out of a wide grin. The driver slammed on the brakes, but the passenger didn't wait for the car to stop. He opened his door and jumped, failing to see the road sign coming up fast. Both of his calves hit a steel support pole, causing his legs to bend in disturbing directions.
At least it wasn't his head, I thought, second guessing the wisdom of my rage. He was just a child after all, although in Middle Eastern countries, explosive-toting children are called terrorists. That terrorist would have taken my toes off with his cherry bomb if I were human.
The car did a one-eighty, slid to a stop in the median, and died. I grabbed the driver by the shoulder as he yanked frantically on the door handle trying to escape.
"Do you have a phone?" I asked.
"Please! Let me go! I'm sorry! Please!" he pleaded.
"I will, but first answer me. Do you have a phone?"
"Yeah, yeah. In my pocket."
"Good. Call 911, tell them you are at mile-marker 272, and then get back there and help your idiot friend. Don't move him in case he hurt his back. Understand?"
"Okay." His voice trembled. I released him. He scurried out of the car quicker than I thought humans could move, and ran in the direction of his friend.
Not wanting to waste any time, I slid between the bucket seats and into the driver's seat. After pulling the door shut, I pressed down on the clutch and cranked the engine. It roared to life instantly. I looked down the highway to be sure it was clear, and saw that a trucker had stopped near where the injured teen would be. The former driver of the Camaro was already there too, frantically pointing in my direction. I knew I didn't have long before the highway patrol arrived, so I popped the clutch and spun around back onto the highway.
I made it twenty of the thirty remaining miles when the blue lights of a police cruiser lit up some distance behind me. I'd been expecting them and was ready. I pulled over, jumped out of the car, and took off in flight, thankful that the cemetery was now within my range. I cruised over the sleeping suburb below, and within a few minutes, glided down near the mausoleum I purchased several decades before.
I took a minute to gather my thoughts, because even though I had lived a long and adventurous life, the night's events still had me reeling. Once a little more collected, I withdrew my phone and texted Lori with worry and apologies. After a couple minutes with no response, I had to assume the worse; the cops had confiscated her phone and were probably tracing my own to the cemetery as I stood around wasting time. I assumed that it would take the locals at least ten minutes to get here—I only required five if I acted quickly.
The weathered-iron door of the mausoleum had a built-in lock plus a huge padlock on the outside, but I had cleverly hidden the keys in my house and then not so cleverly forgotten to take them when I left. Forced to improvise, I grabbed the handle and pulled. Stone blocks next to the door dislodged, locks cracked, and the handle bent. I worried it would break altogether but it held, and after a tense minute the door screeched open on rusty hinges.
Inside, it was completely dark, but that wasn't a problem for me. A black casket resided on a stone slab against the far wall. I walked over to it and lifted the lid, busting the locks I had placed on that as well. Resting in the bodiless casket was a brown satchel containing ten thousand dollars worth of gold coins at 1943 prices—around half-a-million at the current price, and probably over a million when historical value was calculated. This was a small stash, put together hastily in my retreat from Europe. In other parts of the world, I estimated there to be well over a billion in treasure I had hidden throughout the years. I picked up the hefty satchel, turned, and walked out.
"Hello once again, Saint Michael," came a sarcasti
c voice with a hint of an Eastern European accent. It had come from the side of the mausoleum. I whirled around, nearly dropping the bag upon seeing who stood a few feet away.
"Samael?" I asked in disbelief, but knowing the answer already.
"The one and only." He smiled and took a step forward. "You are all over the news tonight. Hitting that helicopter was priceless! Congratulations, you have managed to take the number one spot on YouTube." His words barely registered, I was so in shock. Warily, I looked upon the creature that humans had labeled the angel of death, and later, the prince of demons.
Even though I was reeling, I pulled myself together fast. If he sensed me flustered, it could be fatal, but I also didn't want to give him the pleasure of gaining the upper hand. I looked him up and down as if appraising an antique. He wore high-top black boots with his black pants tucked into them. Above that, a silky black button-up shirt rounded out the dark-but-clean-cut look, except for his dark hair, which still flowed below his shoulders. A holster hung on his waist, holding an oversized odd-looking pistol from what I could see of it. Other than the hair, he reminded me of a Nazi soldier. He looked at me inquisitively.
"You do know it's not the forties anymore, don't you?" I asked, intentionally antagonizing, trying to unnerve him.
"Still the same old Michael: brash, bold, and stupid. Your pause gave your fear and confusion away though. Out of practice, I imagine. You must be wondering how I am alive."
"The thought briefly crossed my mind. When last we met, you really lost your head…literally. So what's the secret? Super glue? That stuff is amazing." He stepped closer. I prepared for an attack, but he stopped. His smile never faltered.
"A little advice," he said. "Ensure that the head is fully severed before you run away. My concubines kept my body secure while searching for a way to fix such extensive damage. A solution presented itself in the form of a crazy fool named Hitler and his merry men. To bring me back, they infused me with a thousand Jews worth of blood and in return, I gave them some excellent ideas on how to deal with inferior races. I was very angry you know, having just returned from decades of isolation in our dimension. Remember how bleak it could be there?"
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