The Mystic Saga Omnibus (Books 1 - 5)

by Scott McElhaney

  The secretary looked up at me and smiled. The attractive middle-age brunette had a reputation throughout the office to cater to more than one suitor, and the fact that I said “wow” worried me as I glanced at the lovely Miss Podbielski. I pointed quickly to the stack of files.

  “Looks like I’ll be busy today,” I said, “Why do I always come in to find a new stack nearly two feet high after I already filed yesterday’s stack?”

  She laughed, “Because Richfield Associates is making money. You should start worrying when you come in greeted with smaller stacks.”

  “Indeed,” I replied with a nod.

  “Lover called, by the way,” she added.

  “What?” I asked, taken aback for a moment.

  “Evelyn from upstairs?” she explained, stretching out the name, “She wanted to make sure you made it to work safely.”

  “Are you kidding?” I laughed.

  “Why don’t you ever tell me about her?”

  “What do you want to know?” I asked.

  She shook her head, then grinned as she rested her chin on the palm of her hand.

  “Everything. Why is she some hot shot vice president working for Bilfield while her boyfriend is down here on the tenth floor working for table scraps? How did you meet? Why aren’t you married after almost two years of dating?” she asked, barely giving me a chance to insert a reply, “Why does she call here everyday when she knows that your boss would kill you for spending time on the phone? Why does…”

  “Please!” I said, holding my hand up, “That’s probably ten questions and you haven’t even given me a chance to reply.”

  She laughed again, then nodded, “Okay then. Marriage.”

  “Marriage,” I repeated, turning to my stack of files, “Well, I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her, but she deserves…”

  “A human?” Drexil added in my head, “Evelyn would never know, Steine! Evelyn could be ours forever and she would never know that she was sleeping with and IX unit!”

  “Dear Lord, Drexil!” Rewan growled, “Steine has something that you don’t. He has a heart – however misdirected that heart is – he still has one.”

  “Misdirected?” I asked my fellow schizoids.

  “Yes, misdirected!” Rewan said, “There’s some truth to Drexil’s argument. She would never need to know.”

  “But-”

  “But nothing, Steine,” Drexil interrupted, “Sometimes I really wish I had control over this body. You’d be happy and so would Evelyn.”

  “What does she deserve?” Miss Podbielski asked, interrupting my covert conversation.

  I sighed, then bowed my head a moment. At times, I felt that no one, including those alter identities sharing my mind, truly understood the real me. I took a handful of files from the stack and pretended to examine the names.

  “She deserves someone more… alive,” I said.

  “Alive?” she immediately questioned behind me.

  I nodded and took the stack of files with me to the deep corridor of beige cabinets that I humbly referred to as “steel hell” or “alphabetizer’s row.”

  . . .

  I managed to stay away from the secretary for the next hour as I performed my tedious task of finding the proper home for dozens of files. While I hated this job with a passion, the internal conversations kept me occupied enough to forget how mindless my chosen occupation was.

  “We may need to create some false documents in order to place ourselves into a more ‘male appropriate’ job,” Rewan said, “According to this society, file clerks are predominantly women and oftentimes, they are under the age of twenty-five.”

  “This was your idea, Rewan,” I said, “You were tired of me stealing in order to keep up the façade that I could make it on my own in New York City.”

  “Agreed, but we contain the combined educations of a doctor, a lawyer, and a detective,” she replied, “Surely we can do better than this.”

  “Then please help me come up with a plan. I’m not the sole decision-maker here,” I replied.

  I heard what sounded like an argument coming from the front office. I tried to ignore the heated words, but curiosity beckoned me toward the latter portion of the alphabet, which was situated conveniently closer to the front office.

  “Don’t they usually jump from the observation deck or higher?” the secretary’s voice rose.

  “But he didn’t technically jump. They say that he’s now on the 39th floor and people are getting killed,” a male voice said.

  “But you just said he jumped from a window,” she said.

  “He jumped from the sixty-first floor, but he had a rope or something, so he swung out like Tarzan, then burst back in on the thirty-ninth floor. He’s killed on every floor he’s been on. We’ve been ordered to lock all doors and stay out of the halls.”

  “Dear Lord!” I gasped, dropping the files to the floor.

  “Dear Lord!” Rewan mimicked.

  “Sixty–one!” Drexil added, stating our own shared thought.

  I rushed to Miss Podbeilski’s desk and found two unfamiliar men in the room who were all sharing the same expression of worry and confusion.

  “Did you say that there was a shooting on the sixty-first floor?” I asked, trying not to show my frantic state of mind.

  “Oh my gosh! Evelyn,” the secretary said.

  “I need to use your phone,” I said, taking the handset before she had a chance to respond.

  I dialed the three digits that would ring Evelyn’s office phone. I looked at the other two men who were examining me while I listened to the ringing in my ear. One guy was proudly modeling an expensive suit while struggling half-heartedly to conceal the hungry glances toward the secretary. The other man’s clothing screamed of a more stressful and harried morning. I pictured him as more of a frightened teenager who just happened to stumble in for a job interview before the doors were locked behind him.

  “This is Sergeant Moroni NYPD,” a stern voice answered.

  “Where’s Evelyn? I need to talk to my fiancée,” I cried.

  If tears were possible in this false body, I think they would have been flowing freely at this moment. My heart dropped at the sound of the sergeant’s voice.

  “I cannot answer anything at this moment other than to say that there’s been an incident and this office is now a crime scene. May I ask what your name-”

  I dropped the handset and rushed out of the room.

  “You can’t go out there!” the shouts coalesced to the point that I had no idea how many of them were beckoning me.

  “Try to stop me!”

  I burst forth into the hallway, breathing my thanks to the gods for a vacant passage toward the elevators. I refused to imitate the speed or the strength of the humans as I ran toward my destination – a destination that I suddenly changed from the elevators to the emergency stairwell instead. I figured that I could definitely navigate the stairs much quicker than the substandard speed the elevators offered.

  “It’s definitely a creature from Legacy,” Drexil stated as I crashed through the door to the stairwell, “This has to be tied to the spacecraft in Canada.”

  “But why here?” I asked.

  “Where do we go? Do we check on Evelyn, or do we pursue the killer on the 39th floor?” Rewan asked.

  I suddenly heard what sounded like a laser, followed by the sharp resound of something metal smacking into another metal object. I paused my speedy ascent momentarily to peer over the railing after hearing another laser followed by another sharp clang.

  “A Son of Violation!” Drexil shouted in my head.

  “Mystic,” I corrected, noticing the telltale sparks that were accidentally released with each jolt of his body.

  I had no time to react as I witnessed a cloaked Mystic drop before me, swinging freely down the center of the stairwell. He was shooting cables from his wrists, limiting the speed of his descent, but speedily descending nonetheless. I wanted to leap onto him in th
at instant, but he was already several floors below and descending rapidly.

  “We can’t catch him, Steine. Let’s go for Evelyn,” Rewan whispered in my ear.

  “We’ll get him later,” Drexil said.

  I watched the man hit the floor below and disappear from the stairwell altogether. For a moment, I wondered what would happen if I leapt down the center and chased him down. Surely, I’d make a crater after falling twenty floors, and sure I’d take a few seconds to regain my bearings, but I was certain I could catch him.

  “Later, Steine,” Drexil interrupted my thoughts, “Let’s get to Evelyn. She may still be alive.”

  I took this encouraging advice and darted quickly up the stairwell. I sped past several descending security guards and police, ignoring their shouted recommendations. None of them chose to pursue me in my ascent.

  In less time than it would have taken a regular human, I reached the sixty-first floor and burst through the door into the hall. I immediately discovered a passageway littered with a slew of armed police adorned in full SWAT gear. My hasty and noisy arrival had drawn the attention of three of them who instantly aimed their weapons in my direction.

  “Stop!” one shouted.

  I immediately obeyed, hoping to maintain that humble human image, as long as Evelyn was still alive anyway. If she wasn’t however, I had no further need for a secret presence on this planet.

  “I’m here for my fiancée,” I said, raising my hands in mock surrender, “She works in the Bilfield Office.”

  “You can’t go in there,” he replied, “You need to leave this floor immediately.”

  “I can’t! I need to know if she’s okay,” I exclaimed before shouting her name, “Evelyn!”

  “You need to leave this-”

  A suited figure ducked past my antagonist, placing a hand on the offending rifle and gently urging it down. His eyebrows shot up in question as he approached me.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, drawing a notepad from his pocket, “And do you happen to have any identification?”

  “I’m Cyan Judge and I’d appreciate it if your men would all lower their weapons. Otherwise I might get shot for reaching for my wallet to hand you my ID,” I said.

  “She’s alive, Steine,” Rewan said, “I intercepted a police frequency. They are reporting two dead males in her office and a woman who is showing symptoms of shock.”

  “Is she injured otherwise?” I asked.

  “Not from what I’m gathering. Also, there are two dead security guards elsewhere in this building,” Rewan said, “That Mystic was up to something here and we need to find out what it is.”

  The man turned to the SWAT members behind him and nodded. It was communication enough to get the weapons lowered. I withdrew my wallet from my back pocket and handed it to him. All he would find in that leather billfold would be a realistic-looking driver’s license that had cost me twenty bucks in a shady part of town, a real library card, a bus pass, two subway tokens, and a five-dollar bill – all the makings of a “normal” New York citizen.

  He opened the wallet and examined my license. To my surprise, he handed the wallet back to me, then scribbled a quick note on his notepad.

  “She’s alive, but in need of some assistance at the moment. We are going to send her for evaluation, then we will need to ask her a few questions ourselves,” he said, “My name is Detective Stambaugh and I’d also like to ask you a few questions just so I can get a better feel for what transpired here today. While some questions can wait until we go to the station, I’m hoping you might be able to offer a few answers right now. First and foremost, does your fiancée have any enemies?”

  “Enemies?” I sputtered, “What exactly happened here?”

  “Just please answer the question,” he said.

  “No, of course she doesn’t!” I said, “Can I please talk to her?”

  “Did she have any dealings with some…” he paused with a shrug, “some of the shadier individuals in town? Maybe those in organized crime or the likes?”

  “Really?” I growled, “Are we talking about Evelyn McHale? What happened in there?”

  He continued to scribble notes down as I tried to catch a glimpse of the activity behind him. I could plow through these people, but I had an image to maintain despite my truest desires.

  “Do the names ‘Trigger’ or ‘Mystic’ mean anything to you?” he asked.

  I gasped. My reaction was immediately noted on his pad. I wished suddenly that I had better control over my outward expressions. Now, I would definitely be taking a ride in a police cruiser.

  Braxton

  I yanked the mask off my face and tucked it under my arm. Then I opened the door to the main level and shoved my hands into my pockets so no one would see the gloves. I ran through the lobby and out of the building as quickly as I could in the hopes that no one would recognize me.

  There were three vehicles parked immediately outside the building with circling blue and red beacons on their roofs. I just kept my head down and burrowed through a crowd that all seemed intent on finding out the reason for all the excitement. I finally made it to the other side of the crowd, when suddenly that odd “overlap” feeling came back in full force.

  For the second or third time in a row – at least that’s how it felt – I walked down the sidewalk toward a familiar man leaning against a light post smoking a cigarette. The smile on Jack’s face was priceless the moment he turned toward me. For the second or third time in a row, I smiled back at him. I was certain in that moment that he’d thought I died in that building.

  The world seemed to be moving in slow motion and even the words that were spoken around me seemed drawn out. I was seeing the Earth through the eyes of a fish underwater. Then as quickly as that underwater “overlap” feeling had come, everything was back to normal.

  “What took you so long?” Jack asked.

  “I had to prove my friend wrong. I’m definitely a super hero in the same respects as the ones in my comic books,” I replied, patting my friend on the arm, “I never missed a single shot in there.”

  Jack laughed, then flicked his cigarette butt into the street. He took the mask from under my arm and slipped it back into the brown bag.

  “We’d better get out of here and before someone recognizes you,” he said.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, keeping my hands tucked into my pockets.

  “We’re going back to the Fortress of Solitude to discuss how we can get ‘The Mystic’ back into the good graces of New York City.”

  “You’re the boss,” I said.

  . . .

  It was almost midnight before Jack returned to the hotel room. I was cleaning and oiling my wrist cables in the bathroom sink when the door opened.

  “I’ve come to the conclusion that you are in need of some color, my friend,” Jack said, holding up a folded sheet of maroon fabric, “Maroon and black would be a strong color combination for a superhero.”

  “No,” I muttered, scrubbing the blood from the last few feet of a cable, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

  He stood at the bathroom door, then dropped the shopping bag to the floor.

  “Okay, and what did you come up with?” Jack asked.

  “There are two problems with my whole… this… this…” I slammed the cable launcher into the sink, then punched the mirror, causing a series of cracks to spider-web outward.

  I grasped the edge of the sink for support as I glared at my broken reflection. It took some effort to get control of my breathing before I reached over and turned the water off.

  “What happened, Braxton?” he asked, seemingly unfazed by my mini-tantrum.

  “I saw her, Jack. I saw Evelyn. I saw that guy at the popcorn counter too,” I said, “I’m a super villain – not a superhero. And to top it all off, I turned you into the assistant of a villain.”

  “You’re not a-”

  “I’m a super villain! Tell me how these assassinations benefit the peo
ple of Earth in any way? They don’t! Oh, I’m a hero all right, but only a hero to the people of my planet. Here on Earth though, I’m strictly a villain.”

  “On Earth…” he repeated.

  “Come on, Jack,” I said, raising my hand in the air and allowing a flicker of electricity to trickle up my fingers, “Did you really believe I was from California or anywhere else on this planet?”

  “But what about when you said the assassinations would be saving the planet?” Jack asked, shaking his head in denial.

  “That part is true,” I muttered, turning away from the sink and kicking one of the damp towels toward the commode, “For every person on my list that I kill, I will probably save millions of people. But the millions I save are people on my own planet – not on yours.”

  I turned to Jack and noticed he was finally looking at the real me for the first time ever. It almost hurt to imagine the man behind those confused and wounded eyes.

  “Believe what you want, Jack, but the facts are this: I’m from the far future and I know what the descendants of these targets will do to my planet. For the price of maybe twenty or thirty humans, we can save half a planet,” I said, “I’m no hero here on Earth.”

  Jack continued to stare at me for about a minute. Then he reached down for the bag and lifted from the ground. He held it out to me and I reluctantly took it.

  “You’re a good man inside, Braxton, no matter what you believe,” he said, “And I hope you won’t kill me when I walk out of this hotel room. But the fact is, I don’t think I should be helping you if what you say is true.”

  I nodded, then looked down at the floor. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

  “If what you say is true, then I’m sure you really do still need to get rid of these targets. That would include the woman you approached today,” he said, “But I’m not part of your world, Braxton, and I can’t share your passion.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “The Joisey Boys still owe you. In reality, I probably still owe you, but I hope you’ll consider my debt paid already with the assistance I’ve already given.”

  “You owe me nothing, Jack, and I thank you for all you’ve done,” I said.