With the creature taking another cautious step in his direction, he had better learn soon—or run like hell.
The beast staggered toward him, thirty feet and closing. Sean knew it was now or never. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the power that emanated from the beast or the ground or God or something. Not knowing what he could do with it, he believed.
The cold January air was getting warmer. The monster was a ball of energy, a power plant around him. Sweat rolled down Sean’s neck. The fire grew within him, trapped in his bones. His arms tensed at his side, preparing to use it, to send it out, to defend himself.
Just when it felt as though he would burn up into nothing, the screeching of a car broke his concentration. Sean and the beast looked up in tandem as a jet-black sedan hopped the curb and spun into a slide worthy of a B-grade cop film.
The student dodged left and rolled on the grass, just barely out of the vehicle’s trajectory. The monster, with its deliberate movement, was not so lucky. With the sound of erupting steel, the car came to a halt as if it hit a concrete barrier. The tires on the far side lifted into the air and then dropped.
An impact like this would have tossed a human twenty yards. It barely knocked the molten thing over. As the form hit the ground, Sean saw its surface move. Little waves rippled around the body.
The monster lay motionless.
A bald man, built like a power lifter, in a perfect black suit, casually stepped out of the car. Sean felt ill. Unlike the powerful auras of Professor Weil and the creature passed out on the ground, Sean sensed nothing, like there was a void within the man. Most people’s auras were faint. But ever since Sean’s transformation, he never failed to get something to read.
This man was an abyss.
He bent, placed a hand on the monster’s forehead, and nodded. The bright glow surrounding the creature diminished. Molten steel slid to the ground, revealing the naked figure of a man. Sean’s stomach tied in knots as the man reached a hand inside his suit jacket and surveyed the scene. A small group had gathered some fifty yards from where he and Sean stood. Nothing like a tragedy to draw a crowd.
“You didn’t see a thing,” the man said with a sneer. He popped the trunk of the Town Car and lifted the unconscious man like a sack of potatoes. Placing him in the trunk, the man got in the car and sped away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Brooke sat in the back seat as Rex navigated the city. She could do without most of the luxuries wealth afforded, but having a driver 24-7 was an extravagance she truly appreciated. One time, she sat in the front passenger side, but it felt odd. Rex Bertoldo actually talked more when she was in the back. The man had been with the Alarawn family for almost fifteen years, since she was in her early teens. It was as if he was family.
“So, what did he find?”
Rex glanced into the rear-view mirror and caught Brooke’s eye. He quickly looked away. The mountain of a man turned down sports talk radio.
“Excuse me, Ms. Alarawn?”
Brooke knew he’d heard her. “I was just asking about Mr. Branton. What happened at the mill?”
Rex kept his eyes trained on the road, hands at ten and two. He was all business, especially when the boss was riding along. “Not really sure. He told me he’d feel better going in alone. I offered a few times, but the man was adamant.”
Brooke could see Rex’s jaw clench. Something was off. “Okay,” Brooks said. “But, what about when he got back to the car? Certainly the two of you talked.”
Rex ran a big beefy hand over his bald head. “Not so much. I mean, he said it was pretty amazing and not what he expected. Otherwise, he just sat and jotted notes in his little journal. I figured I should let the man work.”
Rex slowed to a stop on Liberty Avenue. Glancing over his shoulder, he asked, “Did you want me to get some information from him? I thought I was just his driver.” Rex’s voice bordered on disdain.
The man had been in her employ for five years. She still wasn’t exactly sure how she should treat him, or what his role was. When it came down to it, Rex had five times the experience at Alarawn Industries that Brooke did. Despite his tough guy exterior, she knew he was smart, driven, and shrewd. The fact that he had held the same position for a decade and a half was odd.
He could do so much more.
She wondered if he had.
“No, that’s all right,” Brooke said. “I just thought he would probably talk more—you know—about what he found. I texted him a few times with no response. Like he’s avoiding me.”
He laughed—which sounded like a foreign language coming from the man. Humor and Rex were like oil and water. “He’s a strange one. We don’t have much to talk about.”
“No. How so?” Brooke asked.
“Probably just the fact that he’s an egghead, and I’m a meathead. If you can’t talk sports, guns, and women, I’m not much of a conversationalist.”
Brooke smiled, knowing that the man was downplaying his social skills. The light turned green, and Rex eased the town car off the line.
****
Vince Charles’s large glasses and slight frame made him look like an insecure middle-schooler, despite the fact that he was a multi-millionaire nearing sixty. Brooke and the aging businessman weren’t exactly close, but he had been her father’s best friend, and he was the nearest thing to an ally she had on AI’s executive board.
They met at Primanti Brothers’, a bustling sandwich shop in the city’s strip district. Primanti’s wasn’t a typical meeting place for people of their means, but Brooke was far from typical. Their lunch gathering wasn’t “off the books,” but she had no desire to advertise her movements to Van Pelt and the others. The mixed crowd of confused tourists provided the perfect cover.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Brooke. I don’t see much of a choice.” He kept his head down, distracting himself by picking French fries off his sandwich.
“How can selling the company be a choice at all? You know what this industry means to the city. How can we just strip it for parts and leave it to die?”
“Pittsburgh isn’t the place it once was. It has other businesses. Healthcare, technology, education, and even art are more Pittsburgh than steel is now. Maybe closing up shop is the best move.”
Brooke sat, considering her next words. She had seven months to turn the company around, and she couldn’t afford to alienate the few friends she had.
“Vince, you knew my father, knew how much he cared for this place. We can find a way to make this work, we have to.”
The old man put down his silverware. He reached across the table and placed a hand on hers.
“You know you have my support. If anyone can find a way to right this ship, it’s you. Who knows, maybe your Project Phoenix will work. But I want you to know that your father wouldn’t have wanted you to ruin yourself fighting a losing battle. You can be free to be your own person.”
Brooke smiled at her father’s friend and nodded in agreement. But truthfully, she couldn’t have disagreed more. For better or worse she was bound to this place.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Elijah was in bed, but he was unsure of know how he got there. Sleepless nights had made the view of the sculpted ceiling in his room more familiar than he wished. His head pounded. He felt like one of the frat boys in the back row of his class after an all-night bender. He was cold. A single sheet, tangled in his legs, extended over his torso. As he shifted ever so slightly, a searing pain shot through his side and into his shoulder. Gingerly, he reached across his body, and pulled the sheet back. His rib cage, where he felt the most acute pain, was a work of postmodern art. Splotches of purple in different shades littered his skin. He gently pressed on the darkest area and cringed.
What the hell?
With gritted teeth, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. The pounding in his head matched the throbbing in his side. Elijah rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand. To no avail, he tried to raise his arm. Pulling the
sheet off the rest of his body, he found himself completely naked.
Not his customary nighttime attire.
Blood caked his sheets.
He ran his hand through his hair. It was coarse and sticky. Once he made peace with the pain, as much as he could, Elijah searched his memory.
What happened? Where was I?
He attempted to build an itinerary of the previous day—to reconsider the events. The walk through his morning ritual, the time in the library, and even his conversation with Willa. Thinking of her, he couldn’t help but smile—even through the pain.
I was with Rex. The old mill.
Every nerve of his body screamed as he crossed his bedroom toward the attached bathroom. A foreign image stared back at him from the mirror. The usual circles under his eyes, which accompanied late nights and long study-sessions, were deeper and darker than ever. A three-inch laceration spread from his cheekbone down under his beard. He patted it with his index and middle fingers, sucking wind at the pain. Stitches might be in order. His flabby academic body appeared just a bit less flabby than it had the previous day, as if he had taken on a day’s worth of a workout regimen. A weird scar marked the center of his chest. It was scabbed and pus-filled, but Elijah thought he could see a faint pattern in it.
Turning the shower on full-heat, he stepped off the cold tile floor and into the steaming water. The spray made his torn body sting. Blood, mixed with dirt, made a brackish whirlpool over the drain.
Carefully, he eased himself into the loosest-fitting clothes he could find. Agony filled each movement.
He picked up his phone, ready to call Rex, but thought twice about it. His questions would brand him unstable, and there was no doubt that the henchman returned detailed reports to his boss—Elijah’s benefactor. Not wanting to suggest insanity to his new employer, he instead pulled up Brooke’s number and noticed four texts from her that he had yet to reply to. He tapped out a message: Going to spend the day at Hillman. I’ll keep you posted.
If he could keep them at bay for a day or two he could try and figure out what the hell happened. First he had to take care of his body. A small stack of business cards had piled up on his makeshift dresser. Conference attendance and new positions always added a few to the collection. Mostly he used them as bookmarks. The things were nearly useless in the age of the Internet. He could find almost anybody he wanted to, and they could do the same. But that day they would serve their intended purpose. Sifting through them he found the card of the man from the coffee shop.
Percival Scott, Chemical Research
He tapped the number into his messaging app and stared at the empty text box.
How do you start this text message?
Hey, it’s Elijah from the coffee shop. The new guy. Got a minute? I might need your professional opinion on something.
He sent the text and shoved the phone in his pocket. Easing into the rest of his clothes, he grabbed his bag and turned toward the door. The phone buzzed. He pulled it out and saw that it wasn’t a text, but a call.
“Shit.” It was Brooke Alarawn.
He thought about ignoring her—blame it on being in the library. But in the first few weeks of his position, he feared disappointing his boss. Elijah tapped the green circle next to Brooke’s name. “Hello, this is Elijah.”
“Elijah, it’s Brooke.”
“Hey,” Elijah said, thinking on his feet. “I’m just getting to the library now.”
There was a pause. He had never been much of a liar. “Sounds quiet pretty quiet for the streets of Oakland,” Brooke said.
Elijah wasn’t even sure why he’d decided to lie. “Not really. Must be this new phone.” He considered making more excuses, but figured he would quit while he was behind.
“Anyway,” Brooke said, “I was hoping that you would want to get dinner tonight.”
Elijah was speechless.
She continued. “You know, get to know each other a bit more. But most importantly I want to hear about your trip to the mill.”
Part of Elijah wondered if this was some sort of professional booty call or truly a time for research updates. Either way, the timing couldn’t be worse.
“Sure. Let me check my social calendar.” Elijah waited just a moment. “Looks free from between now and June. I should be able work you in.”
Something close to a chuckle came across the line. “Great. I’ll have Mr. Bertoldo pick you up at six. Library or your apartment?”
If Rex was going to be there, Elijah certainly hoped this wasn’t a booty call.
“Not sure where I’ll be. Tell him I’ll text him around 5:30.”
“Sounds good. See you soon.”
****
The bus ride to Oakland was pure hell. Elijah was pretty sure that the transit was going to shake loose every bone in his body. His Subaru sat in the parking garage of Alarawn Industries. It was likely costing them more to park it than he was being paid. With a decent bus system, and Rex at his beck and call, Elijah had decided to save some cash, and stow his own ride away. As the bus hit a pothole, Elijah cursed his own thrift.
The librarian, usually friendly, gave him a sideways glance as he walked past the front desk. He looked like he’d been hit by a truck, with the scar on his face and his full-body limp. For all Elijah knew, he had been.
Walking up the stairs, Elijah moved to the right to let a descending student past. He was young, with an unruly mop of dark hair on his head and he wore what appeared to be his grandfather’s sweater from the 70s. On seeing Elijah, the kid froze, mouth open. After staring for a minute, he turned around, then took off in the other direction.
Dammit, do I really look that bad?
He eased his aching frame into the usual study carrel. It felt harder than usual. The historic archive was his lone piece of research that day. He hoped that looking at the pictures of Thomas Jr. on-site might break open his memory loss and help him recall exactly what happened the day before at the mill. If worse came to worst, he would hint around with Rex that evening. Maybe he could get some information without disclosing too much.
Flipping the pages, Elijah took in the pictures of the old site. Men, with arms draped around one another, glared at the camera. Cigarettes hung from dirty lips. The soot on their faces and the surrounding rubble made the prints look more like old war photographs than anything else. In some ways that was what they were.
Elijah pulled a magnifying glass from his bag. It was a trusty tool of the historian, as archival photos, more often than not, lacked clarity.
Staring into faces from the past, Elijah felt strangely nostalgic. He could hear the sounds of the mill, feel the heat coming off the furnace, and taste the carbon soot in his mouth. He felt a kinship with the workers. While his research failed to knock loose any of the previous night’s details, it did fill him with emotions unfamiliar to him—homesickness and loss.
Thirty pages later, he felt only anxiousness. His concentration waned and his fingers fidgeted with the pen. Unusual for a man who spent his nights and days focused on dense reading. After five minutes scanning pages that his brain didn’t absorb, he decided it was time to take a break.
Rising from the desk, he remembered just how sore his body was. It had tightened during his time in the study carrel. He worked his way down to the main floor of the library, cringing all the way, and stepped through the front doors.
As usual, a huddled group of smokers stood twenty feet from the entrance. Elijah always threw a smug, judgmental glance their way. He could think of a thousand more enjoyable ways for a human to kill himself—nearly all of them cheaper. His first and only experience with tobacco was as an undergrad. It involved a cigar, vomit, and laughter from his peers. Nearly a decade later the memory still filled him with shame.
He walked past the group, drawing second-hand smoke into his lungs. He didn’t experience his usual revulsion, but rather satisfaction—as if a little edge of his anxiety was sanded smooth. He took a step closer, intentionally drawing
from their thick clouds.
Three of the four students left the crowd, leaving a girl alone, fishing her second cigarette from the pack.
American Spirits—of course.
The co-ed had dyed blonde hair and a heavily made-up face. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her. That didn’t matter. She had what he needed.
Elijah ambled over, his hands pushed in his pockets. “Can I, um, bum one of those?” That line usually worked in the movies.
The girl looked up. “Oh, hey, Dr. Branton.” She paused, waiting for a response. “It’s Julie, from Research Methods.”
Elijah’s face broke into a grin. Toe to toe with his admiring student, he said, “Of course. Sorry. You know, out of context and all.”
She nodded. “What happened to your face?”
His eyes kept dropping to the pack of cigarettes. A reasonable lie would be helpful—but he could barely focus on standing, let alone subterfuge. He shrugged, nonchalantly. “Don’t know.”
The girl’s lips curled into a mischievous grin. “Must have been a crazy night—I’ve had a few of those.”
She pulled a smoke from the hard pack and passed it over. Elijah smelled it, as though it were the last thing on earth. He accepted the lighter. The butt between his lips felt oddly familiar. He drew deeply. While his brain thanked him for the nicotine it craved, Elijah’s virgin lungs were angry. He nearly doubled over coughing.
“Easy there, Professor,” the girl said, putting her gloved hand on his shoulder. She let it linger there until Elijah regained his composure.
Steel City Heroes (Book 1): The Catalyst Page 7