by N. P. Martin
“I get it,” Frank said. “I take it he then told Leland about us coming to the Facility?”
“Yes,” Michelle nodded. “And then, once Leland had heard that, he nodded to the demon who was using his power on my father and the demon just—” She stopped, her face twisting with the horror of the memory. “Twisted my father’s head around without even touching him, killing him right there in front of me.”
“Jesus,” Frank said, grief and anger swelling up inside him. He gripped the shotgun in his lap tightly with both hands. “Why didn’t they kill you as well?”
“When I watched my father fall to the floor, with his head like that, and I knew he was dead… my grace exploded.”
“You did a grace explosion?”
“I didn’t mean too, like it was some kind of survival mechanism, but it saved my life. Distracted Leland and the demon so I could run out of the room.”
“How’d you make it out of the Facility?”
“I’ve lived at that facility for the last nine years,” she said. “I know every way in and out there is, including the ones hardly anyone else does. Doesn’t matter if the whole place is on lockdown.”
Frank considered her for a moment. If she was going to make a move on him, she would have done so by now. Her story also sounded believable to him. He recognized the gut wrenching grief in her as he was feeling the same thing himself. Only her training was keeping her under control, preventing her from breaking down. Much like his own training was, only she was doing a better job of concealing hers. “Alright,” he said. “Where you have been until now?”
“Staying dark,” she replied. “Still am. Coming here was a risk, but it seemed like the best choice. My father trusted you, probably more than anyone else.”
“Not enough to tell me he had a daughter apparently.”
“You don’t have secrets, Frank?”
I think we both know the answer to that one, eh, Frank?
“Okay.” He took the gun of his lap and rested it against the side of his chair. Then he reached down and grabbed the whiskey bottle from off the floor. “Drink?”
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Frank swigged from the bottle, wiped his mouth, and rested the bottle against his leg.
“My father said you drank too much,” Michelle said.
Frank couldn’t help but smile. “He was probably right.”
Michelle’s face relaxed and her previous intensity lessened somewhat as she sat back in her seat. “Actually, give me the bottle. If you can’t have a drink when the world is going to complete shit, when can you?”
Frank was starting to like this girl. He handed her the bottle and watched her take a large swallow before handing the bottle back to him. After he had taken another swig himself, he said, “So what’s Leland and this demon planning? Obviously burning the whole damn city to the ground is just the start. You were close to him. You must know something.”
“Not as much as you might think.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I may have worked closely with the man on a lot of things, but he was also very secretive about a lot of stuff. He only told me what I needed to know.”
“Sounds like, Leland,” Frank said. “So what did he tell you?”
“Like I said, almost nothing. But he would lock himself away for long periods, hours at a time in his suite, obviously talking with others because I often heard voices in there with him.”
“You never eavesdropped?”
“It wasn’t my job to spy on my boss, the leader of our kind. I took my job seriously. I believed in what I was doing at the Facility.”
Frank nodded. “I don’t doubt that. Jack—your father—was the same, as you probably know already.”
“Where do you think I got it from?” she said. “I did what I was told and nothing more.”
“But you mentioned this plan of Leland’s.”
“I know. In a rare moment one day, my curiosity got the better of me. I had been observing Leland for months, watched his sometimes odd and secretive behavior. His requests to have things removed from the vaults.”
“Like the archangel feather?”
“Yes, amongst other things. He never said why he needed them and no one questioned him either. He was—”
“The head of the Council, I know. So you got curious. Then what?”
“I asked him if anything was going on that I needed to know about. He just looked at me and I thought he was going to hit me or something, but then he starts telling me that the angels he speaks with have a plan to make the city, and then the world, a better place.”
“And you believed him?”
She nodded. “He seemed sincere, or as sincere as Leland can be. He didn’t give any details. Just said it would be happening soon and that he expected me to be behind it, whatever it was, because that was my duty as a Watcher.”
“Only thing is,” Frank said. “He was bullshitting you, and his plan seems to have been the exact opposite—to make the city like fucking Hell itself.”
Michelle shook her head, still disbelieving of the whole situation it seemed. “He’s working with demons on this. I just don’t know why. He’s a Watcher, one of us. The head of us. Why is he helping to destroy his own city?”
Frank took a drink from the bottle, then said, “Firstly, Leland is not one of us. He’s never been a soldier and has always been a slime ball politician at heart. And secondly, he’s definitely not the head of me or anyone else I know.”
“Nor me either anymore. Can I have that bottle again?” She took the bottle from him and raised it to her lips and drank before handing it back.
They sat in silence for a moment, Frank looking at Michelle as she stared around the cabin, not really taking anything in it seemed, her mind too occupied. Eventually she said, “My whole world has been turned upside down. All I’ve ever known is gone now.”
“I don’t think you’re alone there,” he said.
“I miss my father,” she said quietly.
I know how you feel, Frank thought. “Listen,” he said. “I intend to stop that son of a bitch, Cunningham. I should have sunk him years ago when I had the chance.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had dirt on him. Was going to use it to ruin him. Someone talked me out of it.”
Michelle nodded. “So that’s why he dislikes you so much. He’s afraid of you.”
“I doubt that matters now,” Frank said. “We’ve gone beyond that.”
“So what do we do?”
“You’re asking me? I thought that’s why you were here.”
“It is. I can get you into the Facility without anyone knowing. But you still have to have a plan.”
Frank stood, stretched his legs and grabbed the cigarettes and lighter from of the fireplace mantle. He took a cigarette out and lit it, not bothering to offer Michelle one because he knew she didn’t smoke. No one at the Facility smoked. It was banned as a danger to health. Never stopped Frank though. It’s why he started in the first place. “Tell you what,” he said, blowing smoke into the room. “You help me with something I have to do first and then we get some people together and hit the Facility, take down your old boss.”
Michele was frowning at him. “What could possibly be more important than stopping Leland first?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
CHAPTER 24
Before he left the cabin along with Michelle, Frank went to the small bathroom to freshen himself up a little, splash some water on his face to try and lessen the effects of the whiskey. He anticipated looking like shit before he looked in the bathroom mirror, but he was still shocked when he saw his reflection. His dark brown hair for a start, was longer than it needed it to be, more unkempt than it normally was, with bits sticking out in odd places, making him look like some kind of mental patient just escaped from the ward.
Not that he cared. It was the apocalypse after all and he had better things to worry about th
an how his hair looked. His brown eyes were bloodshot from the drink and there was still streaks of blood and grime on his face and neck, all framed by a thickening growth of beard.
Michelle did a good job of disguising her certain disconcertedness at his appearance, he thought. Only went to show she was more concerned about getting on his right side instead of looking obviously taken aback by his ramshackle appearance.
His clothes were also filthy, his dark shirt stained with blood and sporting a bullet hole, as did his jacket, which was also torn at the shoulder, thanks to the werewolf that attacked him. Appearance wise, it was a new low for Frank, but he didn’t much care. After splashing some water on his face and wiping away most of the blood and grime, he dried off and left the bathroom to go meet Michelle in his car.
She was sitting in the front passenger seat when he got in, just after he put the Saigan-12 in the trunk. “You have any weapons?” Frank asked her.
“No,” she replied. “I left the Facility in a hurry, remember. Why?”
“Where we’re going, you’ll need weapons. I have two Glocks in the trunk. You like Glocks, right?” He started the Chevy and drove down the narrow road that cut through the forest.
“Actually, I prefer Berettas. Where are we going?”
When he drove onto the mountain road, he spotted a car parked near the trees. He hit the brakes.
“Relax,” Michelle said. “I parked that there. Didn’t want to spook you by driving up.”
The car was a beat up old Ford. “Not a company car, I take it?” He put the Chevy in gear and drove on down the mountain road.
“I stole it to get here.”
Resourceful, Frank thought. He was starting to like the girl more and more. She was obviously a dedicated soldier until Leland screwed her along with the rest. She had her father’s inner-strength. It positively radiated off her. When she asked again where they were going, her tone making it clear she wouldn’t enjoy asking again, Frank told her all about Krakus and his gang of minions, about the soul stealing ritual and about how Leland supplied Krakus with the archangel feather to enact the ritual. Some of that she already knew from what she heard at the Facility. She also knew about Leland’s request to have the feather brought to him. Frank didn’t mention his own interest in the feather. As far as Michelle was concerned, they were going to stop the demons in possession of the feather, nothing more.
You’re using this girl, Frank. Pulling her into this quest for redemption you’re so hell bent on. You’ll get her killed, like you got Jack and Tyreese killed.
“Are you alright?” Michelle asked. “Why are you so tense all of a sudden? You’re making me nervous.”
Frank took a breath and forced himself to relax a bit. “Sorry. Still trying to process your father dying, and my friend Tyreese.”
Michelle was quiet for a moment, then she said, “I haven’t had time to process anything. Nothing makes sense to me anymore.”
It was the first time Frank had seen her look vulnerable, her hard exterior collapsing in on itself for a moment, but then she let out a short breath and sat upright in her seat. The mask of unflappable coolness was back on her face. “What’s your plan when we get to this factory?” she asked. “If we even get there at all. The city has gotten worse. Soldiers are on the streets now, trying to control things.”
“They won’t,” Frank said. “They have no idea what they’re up against.”
“Maybe not, but they are going to make it hard for us to travel through the city. There are roadblocks everywhere. I barely made it out to drive up here.”
“The warehouse district is out of the way. There shouldn’t be much activity around it. We go as far as we can, then we walk if we have to.”
The city was coming into view as he drove and he could see multiple plumes of dark smoke rising from some of the buildings around the city. The black sky above was full of roiling gray clouds. A sky like that shouldn’t have been present in the middle of August. It was almost like some dark force was gathering over the city, preparing to descend. He was so intent on staring at the city beyond that he almost didn’t see the large green truck parked horizontally across the road. Only Michelle shouting his name made him instinctively hit the brakes, bring the car to a skidding halt just inches away from the truck. “Is that a damn army truck?” he asked when his heart rate had slowed down.
“Yes,” Michelle said, already getting out of the car.
“Shit.” He didn’t have time for this. Krakus would be doing the ritual now and he needed to get there before he did another disappearing act with the feather. Nonetheless, he got out of the car after Michelle, who was already around the other side of the truck.
“Frank,” she called. “You need to see this.”
Frank took out his Beretta as he walked around the other side of the truck. He stopped dead when he saw the three bodies lying side by side in the middle of the road. “Jesus. Have they all been skinned?”
“Seems that way,” Michelle said, looking around. “They were obviously soldiers manning this roadblock. What do you think did this to him?”
Frank puffed his cheeks out and shook his head. “Some sadistic bastard, that’s for sure. I don’t know, maybe demons. Doesn’t matter anyway. They’re dead.”
Michelle nodded. “Let me check the truck for weapons. I’d feel more comfortable with something heavier than a Glock.”
Frank admired the fact that she barely flinched at the sight of the three skinned soldiers. As she climbed into the back of the army truck, he wondered how much field experience she had. To watch her, the assured way in which she moved, the way she kept herself together, her clear headedness, Frank thought she had enough.
Suddenly he felt almost responsible for the girl. She was Jack’s daughter, after all. Jack would want him to keep his daughter safe. Frank doubted Jack would be too happy about him dragging his daughter along on some personal mission that held a high likelihood that she might get killed, along with him. Frank knew the risks involved in taking on a demon as powerful as Krakus, but the fact was he didn’t have a choice, not as he saw it anyway. Saving the city probably should have been at the top of his agenda, but what felt more important to him was bringing Rachel back. Saving a city that barely deserved to be saved wouldn’t make things better for him. Only saving Rachel would. Selfish or not, that’s the way things were and nothing was going to change that.
Michelle jumped out of the back of the truck with an M16 assault rifle in her hands. Frank watched as she pulled out the magazine to check it. “Not iron tips, but they’ll do,” she said, slamming the clip back into place. “You ready to move again?”
Frank was looking at the truck. “You see any uniforms in the back of there?”
“Maybe a couple of jackets. Why?”
“Grab them. We’re taking the truck.”
Michelle smiled, then nodded. “I’ll go get them.”
A few moments later they each had one of the army issue jackets on and Frank was driving the truck towards the city. “I doubt they’ll look at us too hard,” Frank said as he got used to steering the big truck. “They’ll have their hands full no doubt. We should get through the checkpoints okay.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Let’s hope we do.”
“Why is this mission so important to you, Frank?” Michelle asked, the jacket she wore a tad too big on her. “I mean, shouldn’t we be breaking into the Facility to try and stop Leland?”
Yeah, Frank. Shouldn’t you?
“We’ll get to that,” Frank said, his eyes on the road as he negotiated a slew of abandoned cars. The doors were wide open on most of them, almost like something had dragged the occupants out in a hurry.
“I don’t like being kept in the dark. I’ve been honest with you so far. The least you could do is be the same.”
A pang of shame and guilt hit Frank. She was right, of course. She had been on the level since they met earlier. “I’ll admit, this is personal. You don’t ha
ve to come along. I can drop you off.” He slowed the truck down to a stop and waited.
Michelle stared at him for a moment, then looked out the window at the city beyond, the city about to fall into ruin. “My father always told me I could trust you, Frank,” she said. “He told me to go to you if I was ever desperate for help, to tell you everything.” She turned to him again. “Whatever this is, I’m sure to you it’s worth it. Let’s just get it done so we can save this city.”
“I admire your confidence,” he said. “When this is all over, I’ll buy you a drink and tell you everything. I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Frank started driving towards the city again.
CHAPTER 25
It didn’t take them long to encounter another roadblock. This time the soldiers manning the roadblock were all very much alive. Barriers were erected across the road, the other side of which was more abandoned cars, most of which had been pushed to the side of the road to clear a path for the military vehicles parked by the checkpoint. As Frank slowed the truck to a stop, he counted three soldiers standing by the barriers and another two near the middle of the road. The two soldiers split off as Frank brought the truck to a stop, one going to the side of the vehicle. Frank rolled down the window. “Hey,” he said to the soldier, a young looking guy, clean shaven and bulky under his combat fatigues. “We got orders to transfer supplies to the other side of the city.”
The soldier frowned. “I just got orders five minutes ago to hold fast at the checkpoints. No movement inside the city.”
Strange, Frank thought. Why aren’t the military in there trying to sort out the chaos? Unless Leland and his cohorts have somehow managed to sway the military as well, which wouldn’t have surprised Frank. Leland certainly had the influence. “We got different orders,” Frank said.
“Orders from whom?” the soldier asked, looking across at Michelle. The soldier wasn’t stupid. Frank knew by the look on the guy's face that he thought something wasn’t right about the man and the woman in the truck.