Steel City Heroes (Book 1): The Catalyst

by C. M. Raymond

  The walkway granted a better view of the factory. Elijah thought of himself as a pit boss, overseeing the hundreds of men working below.

  He passed over the blockage and entered the deeper parts of the mill. The room got warmer. At first he chalked it up to the physical effort he was putting in, but after moving another hundred feet, the change in temperature was undeniable. Not only that, but his chest began to heat up. He was sweating underneath his pea coat. Elijah reached into his coat and found the medallion. It was warm to the touch, hot even.

  Elijah began to take it off, but then something on the ground caught his eye. A slight glow was coming from one of the steel furnaces.

  That can’t be right. These fires have been cold for decades.

  Trying to get a closer look, he leaned over the railing. Years of corrosion were his enemy. The bar snapped and he fell forward.

  Flailing, Elijah managed to grasp part of the railing. The pitted steel bit his palm. His flashlight escaped him, and he hung, dangling in the darkness. He groped for the railing with his other hand, but grabbed nothing but empty space.

  Elijah let out a panicked scream.

  His chest burned.

  The acrid smell of roasting flesh assaulted his nostrils. Elijah looked down. A large cauldron brimming with molten steel sat beneath him. Heat radiated from the ladle below.

  Desperately, he tried again to lift his free hand upward. Straining with the last of his strength, his fingers reached towards the metal bar. His hand moved toward the rail.

  He was almost there.

  Another part of the railing, rusted from exposure, came undone. The sudden jerk was too much for Elijah. His hand slipped from its tentative hold.

  Elijah fell.

  Time stood still.

  His body floated through a sea of nothing toward the bubbling pool of hell below.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “It’s too damn cold for a drum circle.”

  Every Thursday night, King showed up on the Cathedral of Learning lawn. The draw was mostly the coeds—he had a thing for hippie girls and the joints passed between them. The college kids could afford good weed, and he didn’t mind partaking. Students rotated every four years. He’d been hanging out in the circles since Ben Roethlisberger was playing peewee ball.

  That night, King wasn’t feeling it. He shook some hands, bumped a fist or two, and strode off toward Forbes. Drunks would soon be shifting from bar to bar. A perfect time for King to make friends and maybe some money. Oakland, his home since birth, was his throne.

  He jammed his tingling hands into wool-lined pockets. If nothing else, a yinzer needed a warm outer layer.

  King’s coat couldn’t be too nice. The streetwalker was “residentially ambiguous”—as he needed to be. Most of the Oakland community assumed he was homeless—which he wasn’t—and jobless—which was mostly false. Likable and perceptibly homeless was a great combination for making money on the streets. And Pittsburgh was a generous city.

  “Hey, King, what’s up, man?”

  He threw his right arm in the air as the car shot past. King was an Oakland staple. Over his twenty-eight years of walking the streets, King had seen his share of the bizarre: political protests, female streakers, creative public urination, and plenty of drunken fistfights.

  Nothing could surprise him.

  Until that night.

  King nodded at a group of under-aged frat guys as they staggered toward the next bar. He was pretty sure he heard a racial slur garbled in his direction. Not uncommon. Fast on their heels was a group of women—one wearing a tiara—the others singing “Going to the Chapel.” The one near the back gave a catcall. He couldn’t help but smile.

  “Right back at you, baby,” he shouted.

  This was life in a college town.

  ****

  His Casio told him it was still an hour and change until last call at Gene’s Place. Gene’s was King’s kind of dive bar. Unlike the Garage Door Saloon, Gene’s drew the neighborhood folk who had not yet been driven out by rising rents or bought out by the land-hungry universities. The establishment was tight, smoky, and charming. If Pete was on the bar, King knew he could score a shot and a beer to sustain his waning buzz.

  Dodging the light traffic, he crossed Forbes and made his way down Atwood. The further from the campus, the more real things became. Gene’s Place, sitting on the corner of York Way and Louisa, was as real as it got.

  The smell of greasy smoke and the vibration of roots rock seeped into the night air. King gave the jolly German character on the sign a nod as he pulled his last Lucky from a crumpled soft pack. Just as he reached for the door, a rumble and crash echoed through the alley. King looked toward the commotion.

  Thirty feet down York, a dumpster spun on its side like a child’s toy. Beyond the screeching mass, King saw a figure. It was like a man, but two feet taller and twice as wide. The monstrosity cut through a tight row of houses in the direction of Schenley Drive.

  “The fuck?” King uttered.

  With the balls of his palms pressed against his eyes, he wondered if the free weed was laced with something funky. His footsteps echoed through the now-empty alley as he walked toward the crash. The feel of cold metal confirmed that the dumpster was not a figment of his drug-altered mind. One side of it was scorched, warped, and hot to the touch.

  Stepping between the houses, King found the figure’s escape route. Dark marks scarred the brick home on the right. Melted vinyl siding dripped to the concrete on his left. The chain-link enclosure at the end of the walk had been obliterated. King approached to the smell of burning metal. He reached out his hand and touched the fence’s remains with two fingers.

  Pain split his brain. He pulled his hand back. “Shit.”

  Black char marks led toward the back of the properties and up over a brick wall.

  Nursing his burnt hand, he walked back toward the bar.

  Definitely need that shot and a beer.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rana te ljuta zapala…

  Wait.

  Where am I? It has been so long in that place—away. Darkness. Death? Am I on the other side? The light came and I was gone. I saw raj, must have been raj—I am…was a good man. But there wasn’t joy, but pain. And heat. Much heat. Not heaven, but pakao. Fire and heat came from above. It took me away from there, from her. Oh, Adrijana. But where is she now? And where am I?

  The mill. I remember. But what is this pain? Everything is fire.

  Where are they all? They were here moments ago. Before the burning, everything burning.

  These hands worked, bled, for the good of the men, for the good of the city. I am zduhać.

  No, not anymore. These are not my hands, what is this? Are these the hands of the redeemed? They burn like the damned.

  If I am still on zemlja—neither heaven nor hell—he must be here.

  He who turned me into this, a čudovište.

  I will kill him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The back alley was desolate, as alleys tend to be. Though he could hear noise coming from the houses on either side, the chemist felt alone. The first few times he walked this path, he was anxious and uncertain. Practice numbed his fear. His stride was now confident, yet he remained alert.

  Homestead had a reputation for its less favorable inhabitants. Chem knew that it was largely underserved. Like most neighborhoods in the city, the town was relatively safe. The narrow, abandoned buildings could terrify a tourist trying to get to Kennywood—Pittsburgh’s finest amusement park—but unless you were looking for trouble the place was peaceful. It was part of Chem’s job, however, to look for trouble.

  Initially, doing business with local dealers was hard to stomach. Gang life, the way most Americans imagined it, was not quite as extensive in Pittsburgh. But drugs, poverty, and an over-incarcerating criminal justice system did encourage a certain level of violence. Those who operated within that sphere needed a man with his skill sets. And he needed the cash. Scientific a
dvancement trumped the moral ambiguities of his back-alley business.

  He hated taking time away from the lab, but research was at a standstill, and he needed the cash. His run-in with security meant that he had to find alternative sources for his chemicals—not a cheap endeavor.

  Certain that he was on the right track with Baclofen, he still couldn’t manipulate it appropriately in the human blood cultures that he tested it on. Too little was ineffective. But too much and the drug caused lethargy and depression—precisely the opposite of the intended results. Not to mention, a severe overdose would lead to depression or death. It seemed that humans were too weak to be strong.

  Turning a corner, Chem found the dimly lit building. The crumbling stoop sagged beneath his feet. The brick house resembled most others in the neighborhood—run down and nearly condemned. A spare piece of two-by-four supported the gutter, plywood covered the front window. Absentee landlords only cared that their tenements were filled and rent checks came in—most months. Home maintenance wasn’t a high priority for an owner living in Florida.

  Chem tried the door. More often than not, they preferred he just walk in. His heart would always pause as he pushed against the knob. That night the door was locked. Knocking, he waited for an answer.

  Something big must be going down.

  The door cracked open, only as far as the security chain would allow.

  The first few house calls terrified the scientist. The thought of botching a surgery surrounded by armed thugs would intimidate the most experienced doctor. And Chem was far from the most experienced. But gunshot wounds were generally routine: numb them, pull the slug, stitch the wound.

  Easy money.

  “What d’you want?” A voice asked.

  “I’m the doctor.” He held up his bag as identification.

  The door slammed in Chem’s face. The sliding of metal on metal bled through the cheap hollow wood.

  He stepped across the threshold onto a small landing filled with variously sized shoes. The thought of children living amid such violence and squalor was nauseating, though Chem recognized the hypocrisy in his judgment. His own parents had worked hard to provide him with the resources necessary to live a socially upstanding life—a life he threw away when he began his experiments. Everyone had choices to make—not everyone had the same options. Whatever differences existed between Chem and these people, their choices had brought them to the same place.

  “Thanks for coming.” The man on the landing’s eyes filled with concern.

  “It’s my job,” Chem said. “Where is he?”

  The man nodded down a hall lined with closed doors. Chem preferred to stay in the open. Back bedrooms hid surprises and, though scrappy, he wasn’t much of a fighter. Once, someone jumped him for the pain meds he carried, and he barely made it out. But that was near the beginning of his “career” and he now trusted in his reputation. Someone with his talent and ethical nuance was a rare commodity, and whatever else they were, most drug dealers weren’t stupid. They were rational enough not to ruin that relationship.

  He passed through the living room. Bodies sprawled—filling couches and nearly every inch of the floor. They were frozen in time.

  Damn drugs.

  Although Chem experienced the same scene several times a month, it still unnerved him. His host—an enormous black man in a bloody tank and drooping jeans—led him to a back bedroom.

  Through the open door, Chem saw a man on the bed clutching his right arm. A red handkerchief served as a half-assed tourniquet. The patient was propped up on a pile of pillows, resting on a sofa—a familiar grimace on his face. A toddler, no more than three, slept soundly against his chest. This scene never made it onto television. Chem approached, slowly. He’d been doing this long enough to expect the worst. Wounded animals were unpredictable.

  “What happened?” he asked. But the wounded man was unresponsive. He stared up at the ceiling, a wild look in his eyes.

  Shock.

  Looking more closely at his patient, Chem noticed his shoulder. It was black and crusted over. Even someone without medical training could tell that he was badly burned.

  Chem picked up the child and settled him in a faded recliner on the other side of the room. Returning to his patient, he cut away what was left of the man’s shirt.

  A hand shot up and grabbed Chem by the collar. Startled, he dropped his scissors.

  “That thing…it attacked me.”

  Chem took hold of the man’s arm and replaced it by his side. The man’s eyes looked through the chemist to some unknown horror beyond.

  “It’s OK, man. I’m here to help you. How did you get these burns?”

  The man nodded, and bit his lip. “That thing…”

  Chem’s body relaxed. History and experience instructed him that he would be fine.

  He’s hallucinating. Probably self-medicated before I arrived.

  But his patient returned to his comatose state and wasn’t answering any more questions. Chem took a moment to inspect the burn. There was a first time for everything, and Chem wondered how the man came by it.

  The failed med student pulled a needle out of his bag and drew something from a vial. He flicked it with his middle finger, watching the beads fly off the tip.

  “This will numb you up pretty well. It will help with the pain.”

  The man remained passive as he received the shot. Chem wasn’t proud of his source of income, but it made possible his research, which would change the world. And if it weren’t for him, this man’s wound would surely get infected, and he’d probably not make it. Didn’t he deserve help? Chem could never tell if he believed that or if the justification made it easier.

  Fifteen minutes later he left the broken-down house with fifteen Benjamins in his pocket.

  Easy money.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sean wasn’t well-suited for college life. Outside of the solitary confinement that his apartment provided, there were few places that he felt comfortable in. Hillman Library on a weekend came as close as anywhere.

  In university terms, weekends began on Thursday at five. The library was empty, save for a few staffers and antisocials like himself.

  Two stacks of books towered over his study carrel—one, a selection of physics popularizers, the other, the poetry of Levertov. He needed to work on his major assignments, but he couldn’t get Professor Weil out of his head. She had powers—that was evident. But what kind, and how they worked, were questions without answers. She was the only identifiable person who could possibly relate to his changes, make him feel less alone. And he knew almost nothing about her.

  What he did know was that her abilities were tied to her words. Her aura always shined blue. He had no idea what this meant, but when she spoke certain lines it turned cobalt and shimmered. The first time it happened, Sean nearly wept. He was delighted to find she was given another class—he could be near her in an official capacity. Her presence brought him comfort; her words were his balm.

  Was the power in her or the poems? Sean’s eyes scanned the lines in the biography opened on his desk. Denise Levertov’s conversion to poet was only overshadowed by her later conversion to Christianity and the vocation of priestess. An interesting choice to begin the semester.

  He felt a kinship with Levertov. His own changes were pronounced, and, as far as he could tell, her evolution changed everything about her. Sean had hoped that merely reading the lines would be affectively curative. He needed to find a way to mollify his anxiety without always being in the presence of Professor Weil.

  He read her poems.

  Nothing.

  Unease and exhaustion coursed through his veins. He glanced at his phone.

  1:42.

  Dropping piles of books on the cart near the end of the stacks, Sean headed for the exit. Old words would provide no relief.

  On the steps of the library, he looked over the municipal parking lot and small urban park. Most nights he would take the bus home, but it was Thu
rsday. The buses would be packed with drunken, obnoxious students. Pulling out his phone, he tapped the Uber app. A small price to pay for peace of mind. Cars littered the interactive map—they always did on a weekend night in Oakland. Just as he was requesting a ride, something between a growl and shriek called out in the distance. Sean felt the power before he saw it. It was stronger than most others he had experienced. While Sean’s transformation began nearly a year ago, he was still figuring out what exactly he was—and what he was capable of. Moments like this were rare, and he struggled to make sense of them.

  A bright, red presence crept around the corner. No one else could see the auras, but for him this one was blinding. He looked away as it grew stronger. The creature emerged from around the side of the library. It looked like the bastard son of a comic book villain and some kind of apocalyptic demon. Its enormous body was dark black, yet it glowed as if it was burning on the inside—like fire trying to escape from cracks in its skin. Sean could see smoke coming off its back. The figure’s strides were long, but uneven—almost drunken. It lurched forward, leaving burning red embers in its wake. The monster stopped. Its head, pulsing lava, turned toward the quivering student.

  Sean felt miniscule. All he ever wanted was to use his abilities for good, but at that moment he wished he could disappear. They stared each other down, two wild animals poised for combat. Can it recognize my powers?

  Sean looked into the depths of hell.

  The creature was grotesque. Shaped like a man, its form changed oddly, almost fluidly. Its viscosity reminded Sean of a snowman melting during a warm day in February, features slowly distorted by the sun. A creation of Dante’s come to life. Whether it was the tortured or the torturer, he couldn’t tell.

  Sean had faith in his destiny. Faith that his powers were more than just sensate. At times, he could almost tap into the great surges of energy coming from the world around him. As the monster took a step closer, Sean felt its heat, not on his skin but in his body—like electrical currents moved up his legs and into his chest. Something was happening—it was like being around Professor Weil, but on steroids. Whereas she exuded peace, Sean could now feel only rage. The fire was intoxicating. If only he could focus it.