Not Against Flesh and Blood (The DX Chronicles Book 1)

by Brian Cody

  Erik then straightened his posture, but, despite the greater bruising and the drenching sudor, his insufflations moved calmer, while his gaze sharpened. With a final gasp, Erik’s breaths returned to a slow pacing. While humming, he unzipped his hooded jacket and let it fall, leaving his black tee. Erik then knelt to his red duffle bag, extruded, and unsheathed his second katana.

  “Hey, you good?” Erik called. “Do me a favor”, he began as he spread his legs and bent his knees, “don’t blink. We’re both combatants—out of that respect, I want you to be able to see your defeat.” The shade inhaled and slid his left foot back. Erik also inhaled, tightened his hold over his katana, tightened his body, and pushed off. With a baritonal clap, a geyser of flames, ten yards in height, beamed from Erik’s position. Within those first milliseconds, the shade perceived a trail of flames curving from the blazing column and angling towards his right side. He turned with his own inhuman reaction, but by the time he locked eyes, Erik, with the back of his body aflame, swung his left with supersonic and cometary speed.

  The shade blinked, and Erik’s fist drilled into his face. The shade tensed and lifted his arms, but Erik fired three blows to his gut. The grey shade jabbed, but Erik swatted the blow away, sprinted around him in a fiery blur, threw three more punches, and then double-kicked. The shade slid and turned, but Erik flanked his left and fired a barrage of flaming punches, with five of the blows impacting and resonating along the shade in one concussive wave. The shade was jolted backwards, travelling for thirty feet before he about-faced, spread his legs, and landed in a pavement-upheaving stomp.

  Propelling flames howled behind the shade and drove him to spin to Erik’s darting form. Growling, the shade lifted his bladed and blood-drenched right arm and swiped for Erik’s chest. Erik, three strides from contact, looked to that blade. Too late to evade; have to counter. He lifted his katana in his first stride, clasped it with his left in his second; and, upon his third, countered in a diagonal stroke. Erik’s folded steel and the shade’s double-edged, arm-held dagger chimed while cleaving vacuous streaks through the air, accelerating towards bulleting velocities, and aligning with one another.

  A blaring stridence and a pulse of azure light erupted between the two. As that light dissipated and that screech was replaced by an omnipresent ring, the two opponents locked onto the point and then onto the fluttering portions evulsed from that contact point, while their weapons followed through. Both of their blades had been severed, with the shade’s weapon existing as a rectangular stub of two points from his forearm, and Erik’s once flawless katana being but a few inches of malleated and uneven steel. Erik looked to his tattered edge; then stepped.

  An earth-trembling bang pulsed up the shade’s legs. He peered towards Erik, who had stomped his left leg to stop his follow-through and then to reverse it. With one hand on his hilt, Erik jerked around in a muscle-straining curve, ducked, and then thrust his arm outward and upward, past the shade’s outstretched arm and towards his gut. Erik felt the contact, the thrust of his diminutive edge, and the repulsion of that strange material covering his foe and endowing him with superhuman might. Erik then tightened the muscles in his right arm and, with a rising, slanting jerk, released that gathering energy in an upward swipe. The howls of tearing cloth, the gurgling moan of rent skin, and the azure-blue and goldenrod bolts jolting across that suit occurred in synchrony as Erik thrust his bladed remnant up the shade’s gut and across the left side of his chest before flicking a geyser of shredded cloth and sanguinary flesh.

  As Erik recoiled, the shade plunged across three yards before swatting the ground, then forcing himself to his knees, and then ending his ricochet by rising to his feet. The shade slouched as Erik stood tall, and the shade breathed as Erik dropped his broken remnant and cracked his right fist. The shade seized before he could extend his breath. He looked down to the scarlet streams pouring from his suit, and then to the suit itself coughing bolts of strange energy along his torso and atop the edge of his severed blade. He shook, not from the pain or the initiating shock, but from a diminishing surety. He then looked up to Erik charging once more, and though feeling his pain strengthen with the motioning of his torso, the shade lifted his left and squeezed his fist.

  Erik gaped as the concentrating light reflected off of his face. He tensed, and the laser screeched from that miniature barrel, but intercepting it was another geyser of flames. The laser sliced through and dispersed the blaze, but, the shade found his target absent, while a roar thundered overhead. The shade looked skyward, where Erik soared, his feet bleeding a column of flames, and his arms held by his sides as he ascended past one thousand feet. Erik, with a sideward jerk, then levelled his path. After a moment, he descended. Then, he inverted his flight and dove towards his takeoff point. Then, he outstretched his arms, causing orange flames to erupt around him. Tearing towards near-sonic flight, he passed over the treetops and aimed towards the grey-clad shade. Then, thirty feet above ground and instants before impact, Erik righted himself within that blaze, pulled in his arms, and thrust. Reacting to that thrust, his sheath of flames bulleted past him.

  The bolide crashed in front of the shade and detonated in a flaming cascade that, after fifty feet of life, dispersed and left a molten downpour and the re-ignition of an unconscious mind.

  With a wheeze and a cough, Lamback opened his eyes, reared up, grabbed his firearm, but then lowered it and lay on his back. Perceiving the ring in his ears, he lifted his head. “What…?” he mumbled as chunks of asphalt rained before him. He then looked through that smoggy and molten hail to a crater, five yards in diameter and glowing red-hot. Then, he looked past the crater, to that crater’s outstretched forger twenty feet in front of it. “Nice”, Lambach muttered as Erik pushed to his knees within his own concave and then looked to his opponent. Ten feet from the far side of the crater, outstretched along the ground, and covered in soot and debris, the shade turned from side to side, his suit, once doused in a thickening red, engulfed in a layer of smoking earth.

  “I’m not sure if you caught it or not”—the shade locked in place. Then, as Erik stood and let his arms hang, the shade recommenced his uneven turns, trying but failing to gather the energy to stand—”but I let the blast hit the ground instead of hitting you head-on.” Erik then meandered along the crater’s edge in a steady but swaying posture. “I haven’t filled out the necessary papers to legally take your life”, he continued, the shade’s head turning after him and tracing his path. “That”, Erik stopped and looked up while crossing his arms, “and, no offense, but with the fight you were putting up, if I had killed you, it would’ve been really one-sided. I could probably argue self-defense to my superiors, but not to my conscience. If truly necessary, I’m willing to neutralize a threat, but for you (again, no offense), I would’ve equated it to something closer to murder; and murdering, sir, is definitely a sin.” Erik uncrossed his arms and continued.

  First lying as still as his battered form would allow, the shade twitched his fingers. He performed the action once, then twice, then, as Erik came within twenty feet, once every second, then twice, then three times per second, until his fingers and his arm were squeezing and releasing, working without relent despite the agonizing burn.

  “I guess…you don’t really have to talk”, Erik remarked while glancing down the road to Lamback, who was hoisting himself to sit. “Most perps, at this point, start cursing me_”—Erik stopped and spun, a blue glow reflecting in the corner of his right eye and directing him to the speeding grey board. Too close! Stupid hover-board!—Erik crossed his arms over his head and inhaled. The board slammed into the outside of his right shoulder and launched him onto the roadside before spiraling and hovering alongside of the shade. Lunging, the shade dragged himself to his feet, ambled, and then skipped onto the board’s top. Then, he bowed on all fours, and the board, in turn, blasted into aerial motion. “Yeah, okay!” Erik bellowed as he stood, reached for the top of his right arm, and, with a rough thrust, reloc
ated his shoulder. He then looked to the stream of exhaust and skyrocketed by a tail of orange flames.

  Ahead of him, the board accelerated in an elongated spiral. After ten seconds, a crack thundered through the atmosphere as the shade and his craft tore past one–and-one-half and then two times the speed of sound. Erik pursued, once more outstretching his arms and engulfing himself in a fiery sheath that thrust him past Mach one, pushed him towards Mach two, and pushed him toward his attempted assassin. The shade looked back to Erik as they ascended past ten thousand feet, and, with a breakneck turn, he angled his board leftward and shot into a straining 360-spin. Erik kept step, and, as the shade turned to the right, then dove, then ascended, Erik kept step, and, with each winding motion and each spiral, closed in as they tore through the middle atmosphere, bulleted over the forest, over the road, and ascended farther.

  The shade jerked the board to the right, then angled it to the left, then rolled in a downward spiral for one thousand feet. He looked back as he levelled off, finding Erik to have lost several hundred yards, but which Erik then retook. Still kneeling atop his board, the shade then banged on the board six times in sextuple beats.

  “You rang?” a voice—humming, male, and bearing the intonation of Queen’s English—inquired, as it emanated from within the board, but played with enough volume for the shade to perceive it amidst the turbulent winds.

  “What the h*** is this!?” the shade wailed as he jerked the board into another skyrocket. “You said I could do things; get things—you said I could get payback! You said I could beat him, man! You’ve gotta help me! I can’t do this. I shouldn’t have broken out; I shouldn’t have listened to you! Help me; you have to! Or I’ll…’” the shade looked up, “Or I’ll talk!”

  “Relax”, the voice replied with level tone, “everything’s going to be”, the voice paused, and, replacing it was the illumination of a crimson symbol—a six-inch ring around, the trinal lines of an uppercase pi—along the center of the board which shined through the shade’s blood. “Okay”, the voice finished as the pi’s left-vertical line flashed once per second.

  “Wh-what do you_?”—the shade bowed to muddle the passing howls of wind resistance, “What do you mean_?” A zooming vibration passed through the board, but it vanished, and, in its place, the shade’s fingers tightened over the board’s front edge, while the fabric covering his knees and face lurched downward and were locked in place by magnetic adhesion.

  “After all, it’s like they say”, the voice replied as the pi’s horizontal line flashed once per second, “all’s_”

  “Yah, trick!”

  The shade turned as Erik ejected from his flaming formation with the timing and speed to grab onto the board. The shade fought against the adhering grasp of his mask and pivoted, while Erik knelt beside him and hooked his left. The shade, battered, losing blood, and tethered to his escape craft, could only watch as that fist drilled into his face with cracking contact and slapped his head onto the board, where, by the magnetized fabric, it remained.

  “Pull this thing over!” Erik bellowed as they ascended towards the mid-stratosphere. The shade groaned and mumbled in response as he tried to shake his head from side to side, but found his motion shackled. “What?!” Erik blasted as he leaned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have aimed for your jaw_” Erik’s gaze was diverted to the board’s surface and towards the beeping symbol as the last of those three lines, the right vertical mark, initiated its own series of red flashes, once, twice, four times, six times, and then ten times. Steadily flashing symbol…definitely… “Bomb!” Erik exclaimed as that mark flashed an eleventh time. He knelt as the twelfth flash occurred, and he kicked off of the board and plunged as an electronic drone sounded from it.

  A gleaming, azure light engulfed the board, while a cascade of azure energy ballooned for five hundred feet—the remnants of which battered into Erik a second after the eruption. Though intact as that deleterious light vanished above him, Erik fell with eyes closed.

  ***

  “Shoot!” Lamback groaned as he watched that explosion diminish and watched that silhouette plummet from twenty-thousand feet. “Erik!” he called as he dragged himself up, “Erik!” He looked down both sides of the road and then seized as he found the SUV. Lamback dashed for it in an uneven but hurried race, feeling the sides of his pockets in search of his car keys, but failing to locate them as he slid to his knees in front of the windshield, thrust into that vehicle, and dragged himself past shattered glass. With a sideward reach, he clasped the steering wheel, and, with a hard smack, pounded his fist into the center of the wheel, a loud wail rushing from the horn and into the sky; yet, Erik was still as he fell past ten thousand feet. Lamback pounded a second time, a third, and then a fourth, holding his fist against the wheel as Erik came into view, five thousand feet above the ground. “Come on!” Lamback pounded a bombardment of short, but strident, coughs that pulsed through the atmosphere with enough volume and sporadicity to appear as a discrepancy to Erik’s subconscious mind, then a sensation that caused him to twitch, and then as a hook that pulled his eyes ajar as he plunged past two thousand feet.

  Erik stabilized into an upright descent, inhaled despite the resultant burn, and kicked. Orange flames exploded from his feet, igniting the nocturne for a moment and driving Lamback from the vehicle and into the center of the road. The flames extinguished after a few seconds of propulsion, reinstating Erik’s downward plummet from one thousand feet. Erik inhaled a second time and pushed off, a second burst exploding from below him and angling him into a diving flight. He shot past the tree line thirty feet below and then over the road. His flames diminished as he passed over the asphalt and they then extinguished, leaving him to glide.

  “I’ve got you!” Lamback exclaimed as he stepped twice, spread his arms and legs, and stood two hundred yards in front of Erik’s speeding and flailing form, “I got him…I_” Lamback pouted, and, while Erik righted himself for the impending landing, at seventy miles per hour, Lamback pondered his own condition. “Don’t got him.” He lunged.

  Erik shot past, jounced onto the road, and rolled for thirty more feet before swatting against the SUV and rolling to the ground. Standing from his evasion, Lamback jogged for Erik, who pulled himself to his knees. “What happened?” Lamback asked as he grabbed Erik and hoisted him.

  “He just…blew up”, Erik remarked as he looked skyward.

  “Huh…” Lamback murmured as he then looked down the road, while picking up a distant but discernible siren. “Police…” he muttered as Erik looked around. “They’re maybe a few minutes away.”

  “We’re gonna need a cover story before we get to Quantico”, Erik noted as he looked to the scorch-marks, the still-smoldering crater, the pummeled SUV, and the flaming branches and trunks along the road.

  “Uh, yeah; you could say that…” Lamback stopped as he pulled his right hand through his hair. “Any ideas? Do you think the meteor excuse will work again?” he asked.

  “Why not just say that we hit a bear and swerved or something?” Erik asked.

  “Okay, what bear?” Lamback replied.

  “Huh…” Erik looked around the road. “I’ll go find one.”

  “And do what?”

  “Kill it, I guess”, Erik replied as he hobbled towards his remaining katana, then alongside of the road and still doused in the shade’s blood.

  “Wait”, Lamback called as Erik picked up his sword and looked around. “Wait, Erik, that’s illegal.”

  “…So?” Erik replied as he spun back.

  “If there’s one government agency I don’t feel like having to kiss up to, it’s the EPA”, Lamback replied. “And if the tree-huggers catch wind of you killing an animal outside of its hunting season, your social life is done; they will follow you everywhere. Did I tell you about the agent who gunned down a lake monster in the seventies?”

  “‘The EPA still hassle him to this day since it was the last of its kind yadda yadda’—yes, you have; I get it. I’
ll go find a buck or something; they should still have their antlers.”

  Lamback glanced over the SUV before spinning to Erik. “That kind of damage would take a very large buck.”

  “Okay, you know what?” Erik began as he stepped off of the road, “I’ll kill whatever I see first, and if it’s a bear, I’ll really make sure it looks like we hit it”, he suggested as he started into the forest.

  “You have twenty minutes”, Lamback called before reaching into his pocket and extracting the remains of his phone.

  Chapter Eleven: Saturday, 20 February

  “And Randolph Road is now Blatchley Road.”

  Bryen reared up as he lay along the passenger side and looked out the window, to the same, forested, county roadway they had travelled over during the preceding ten minutes. He then looked ahead, first to the green traffic sign hanging beside the stoplight, and then to the square of light illuminating David’s Escape from the GPS map on the dashboard.

  “B, try putting in the address again.”

  Bryen turned to David, still holding the wheel with both hands, still with eyes gaped and alert, and still with upright posture. Yawning, Bryen then first reached for the cup holders and grabbed the can of his (second) energy drink, but, finding it empty, released it and reached for the device. Tapping the screen twice, he exited the moving presentation of the road and navigated to a selection screen. “Blatchley Road”, he spoke while selecting that pathway. “Nine...twenty...five, and...” Bryen humphed and lowered his hand. “Still no.”

  “What if CORGI was wrong?” Shawn asked as he reclined along the backseat, one leg crossed over the other, and a pair of headphones in his ears.

  “That would really surprise me”, David replied. “If they have detailed information on B-money, who wasn’t even on the government’s radar a few years back, I’d think that they’re pretty accurate. I’m still surprised we were able to find his address. Maybe it’s not listed in the GPS database or something.”