“Oh, I don't know about that, so far the night's been pretty exciting,” he said, smiling.
“See, there's a dude that knows how to keep the adventure rolling!” Jonesy said, giving Bry guy acknowledgment.
My watch said it was only eleven; felt like hours had passed.
“Looks like we got the green light to do more screwin' around. Let's see who we can jerk outta the pasture here Caleb.” Jonesy said, thumb in the direction of the old graveyard at our backs.
“Nah, I don't want to. I've had enough for tonight. And with ghosts so close, I don't know. Things could go bad. Besides, it seems wrong to do it for sport or something.”
“The element of surprise!” Jonesy said, ignoring me.
Bry blanched. “Would it be like Scenic?”
“May have been because Gran was a relative,” I said.
“Well that one zombie, Chris, Claude...” Jade began.
“Clyde,” I supplied.
“That's him!” she remembered.
“Yeah, he seems more aware,” John said.
“What do you mean? I've never seen the zombie trick.” Sophie said.
“It's not a trick,” Tiff said, offended.
“I didn't mean anything by it, I'm just sayin'...”
“Caleb's raised this particular zombie, what, three times?” John looked at me for confirmation, I nodded. “So each time he comes back he seems to be...”
“Smarter,” I said.
“Yes,” John agreed.
“Last time he seemed to communicate with the other zombies like a captain or something,” Jade said.
“Captain of the Zombie Guard!” Jonesy laughed.
Right... so funny, not-laughing.
“I don't want a repeat of the Gran Incident,” Bry said.
“Yeah, that went pretty sideways,” Tiff agreed.
“And then Garcia and his creepy partner showed up...” Bry began.
“McGraw,” I added.
“Yeah, him,” Bry said with gravity.
We were all quiet for a little bit.
“So Garcia's corrupt?” John speculated.
“It's lookin' that way, I don't know for sure. But they're pairing mundanes with paranormals now and McGraw was quick to show us he was an Elemental, sorta like a threat,” I said.
“Wait, I hadn't heard they had decided that, pairing mundanes and paranormals,” John said.
“They haven't, but Ward and Gale said that it was going to be a permanent rule or whatever soon,” I said.
“A sanction?” Bry clarified.
I nodded.
“That makes sense. Look at what would happen if a bonehead like Carson decided to do crime professionally.” Everyone nodded their agreement. “And two regular cops showed up?” Jade stated.
“Sish-kabobs! Cop-kabobs!” Jonesy yelled, making the up in flames noise.
Nice visual.
“The original human torch,” Bry agreed.
“My point exactly. There's got to be a counter for that level of power, like a John,” she said.
We all looked at him. “Bet there's a ton of Nulls on the force,” Bry stated logically.
Sophie nodded. “Jade's right. Psychic Nulls would mean the negation of all those freak-a-zoids.”
“Negation! Are you one of those smart girls?” Jonesy asked, eying Sophie.
“Sometimes,” she smiled and even I saw the wink in the moonlight.
“Okay I give, what does that mean?” Jonesy asked.
“I can neutralize other paranormals' abilities.”
“Oh yeah, I remember, you do the whammy and they can't zap us.” Jonesy nodded, shaking a finger at John.
“That was alarmingly close to girl-speak, my friend,” Bry said warningly.
“That's okay, I'm diversified, and consider my girl-speak to be my second language.”
“Nice,” Sophie said, unimpressed.
Jonesy grinned again, his teeth a pale sliver.
“That will count for college,” John laughed.
Suddenly, Onyx emitted a soft growl of alarm at the same moment that Jade asked, “What's that noise?”
I looked around but didn't see anything. Then I heard it, a soft thump-thump-thump. If I hadn't known better, it sounded like a giant's heartbeat thumping through a pillowcase loaded with feathers. We frantically looked around but didn't see anything. Onyx gave a single sharp bark, looking up. The trees above us parted like a dark invitation, exposing a helicopter over our heads, over the graveyard, over our lives.
****
Jonesy stepped forward, legs planted wide apart, stabilizing his balance as the helicopter swept the trees in a silent hurricane, their tops bending back to accommodate it. The stealth helicopter descended like a black spider. The sky was its web, a fat body with chopper blades like legs ready to spring down.
Our loose group watched, Onyx outright growling with a random bark underscoring the oncoming threat.
Some spark of understanding swam to the surface and it was in that moment of self-realization that I felt responsible for more than just me and Jade.
I turned to the group, yelling over the wind tunnel noise of the chopper, its bulk blotting out the moonlight, “Get to the graveyard now!” I shouted out, “Bry!”
“Yeah!” he yelled back.
“Protect the girls, get them out of here!”
“Tiff, I need you!” She ran to me, her hoodie falling away from her face, leaving it exposed and vulnerable. I had a stab of guilt as she raced at me, but we needed to survive this, survive the now.
John and Jonesy gave me a profound stare; I was the leader here, whether I liked it or not.
“Stay with Jade and Sophie, Bry will help,” I yelled.
Ropes dropped like snakes out of the belly of the helicopter; I counted: one, two, three. Resolve solidified into a tight knot of dread.
I would get us through this.
Tiff stood by me, her stance like Jonesy. I was counting on her being a guy right now, even though she looked so girl. Her slight body stood next to me, hands balled into fists. If things hadn't been so dire, I would've smiled.
The shadow of the chopper blades made her face a jagged dance of light. “We're in deep shit,” she said.
“Yeah, it'll be okay.” The closest to a lie I'd ever told.
“Take care of my sister, Caleb,” Bry shouted.
We stared at each other across the space of the graveyard, he at the back with Sophie and Jade behind him and the Js in front, their bodies a shield.
“Yes!” I bellowed.
Onyx stood on all fours, his head lowered, as the three men dropped to the ground, the ropes loose and swinging.
The Bad Males had arrived and a grinding fear was covering the Boy, its smell permeating his nose like a coating of oil, slimy and alive.
He would protect the Boy.
Onyx crouched, preparing to lunge. “No!” I yelled, leaping at him, doing the superman, arms out in front.
“Not the boy!” the man in the center yelled over the noise of the chopper, their guns trained on me and Onyx.
Onyx and I rolled together and he sprang up. I got up on my knees and was greeted with the muzzle of a gun in my face. I was glad that my parents had been thorough in their potty training because I swear I felt my bowels hiccup.
“Easy there, young fella,” Gun-Holder said.
It was an M-16, its black tip a solid circle in front of me. My eyes ran the length of the barrel, the spiral shape distorted, to lock gazes with Gun-Holder's lifeless eyes... killer's eyes.
The middle guy sauntered up to Gun-Holder and used his finger, pushing the end of the gun barrel up in the air toward the chopper.
“What the hell, Parker?” Gun-Holder said.
“We're not here to kill but to acquire, there is no threat in that, best to remember it.”
My head snapped to the middle guy, who removed his knitted black ski-mask, and there he was.
I'd know him anywhere, Jeffrey Parker.
He looked the same except no glasses, the geek in him peeking through at the edges but inside a mid-twenties body that was hard and lean with a face to match. That unfinished quality that he had in the last photo I'd seen was gone forever.
“Stand up, Caleb,” Parker spoke in a clear, ringing voice.
I did, but I was going to be in charge. This was not how I had thought I'd meet Parker, it was going to be on my terms. I glanced at the gun. Besides, they weren't here to kill me. They wanted me. That was almost worst.
It was my only leverage.
I turned around, sparing a glance for Tiff, who was standing with Man-Three a short guy as wide as I was tall, a gun trained on her.
This was going bad fast. Looking further back I spied the Js, Jade and the others still where I put them. Bry looked like the rock he was in the middle of the group. Jade's face was burning in my mind when I turned to face Parker.
“What do you want?” I yelled.
Man-Three, pressed a small voice-activated mike from his shoulder to his mouth, saying something quickly into it.
Suddenly, the noise of the helicopter toned way down like air leaving a balloon.
“There, that's better,” Parker said. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, that saves time. We're here because we know what your potential is, Caleb.”
“You're wasting your time, Parker. I tested out as a two-point.”
He laughed, just short of braying; creepy and false. “Yes, we're aware of that. Our operatives were watching things very closely. We have high hopes for you, Caleb, and you won't disappoint.”
I let the questions stand on my face. I was not going anywhere with this guy. He made all the hair on my body stand on end.
Like recognized like.
“Who do you think was in your house making a mess of your things? We know every conversation that has happened since that moment. We are very aware of what you and your clever father have been manufacturing for the sake of keeping your gift a secret,” he explained patiently.
Like I wasn't going to get it.
I got it. “Here's the thing,” I said. “I'm not going to be the government's bitch.”
Parker smiled and said, “You'll be what we want you to be... to become.”
He signaled to Gun-Holder. “Get the girl. We can use her to persuade Mr. Hart to our cause.”
I turned to look at Tiff but Gun-Holder was jogging toward Jade.
Oh no, he would try to force me through Jade.
Everything slowed down then, I calculated how far Tiff was from me and she looked back at me, nodding. A gun tip like an arrow was pointed inches away from her head; I had to gamble with her life but we were all at stake.
I took two huge steps leaping for Tiff. She extended her arm as Man-Three whipped his gun around, using the stock as a weapon. She bent forward just as the butt whistled across her forehead, grazing it, a gash opening up as I touched her hand. She clasped the other one and we pulled toward each other as one, a mid-air waltz. We landed just the right side of the cemetery, our power shimmered together like a thing alive.
“No!” Parker shouted, realizing too late just what Tiff was.
Their intelligence needed work.
I craned my neck to look again at our group and Gun-Holder was within reach. Bry took the hand that he put forward for Jade in both of his, using the guy's own momentum to keep him moving. But he was an adult, a trained government assassin, and he took Bry with him for the ride.
“Move!” I screamed at Jade, as she flung herself out of reach and did the opposite of what the operative thought she would.
The operative was landing a solid beating on Bry (he never caught a break), and Jade ran through the tombstones, gray flags in the failing light.
“Shit! Get that girl,” Parker yelled at Man-Three.
Man-three, who was the tallest of the group, ignored Tiff and me.
His fatal mistake, going for Jade.
Parker had been far enough away but was closing the distance between us fast, Tiff and I holding hands.
Jade had stopped right in the middle of the graveyard, the Js joining the scuffle to aid Bry. Sophie uncertainly moved forward after Jade while Man-Three paced her, mirroring her progress.
“Jade, run to me!” I screamed.
A violent anger for our situation, Jade being in danger, our friends in jeopardy rolled like a huge heaving animal in my body.
Man-Three roared like a lion, rushing forward those fifteen feet to grab Jade who took evasive action, leaping to the side, using her smallness to maneuver around a tombstone at the extreme left.
I let my power out of my body that fast, a precise laser sent straight in front of Jade, where a zombie exploded out of a grave. He was a macabre thing of beauty, his arms fully extended, knees bent up in the air, classic karate stance.
He appeared before her as a warrior and I screamed inside its head the command: protect.
My zombie landed directly in front of Man-Three who unceremoniously pressed the M-16's gun barrel to the zombie's chest, using a palm on the zombie's shoulder, jerking him closer and fired point blank.
“No!” I shouted, my zombie blown to smithereens before my eyes.
But Jade kept coming, my zombie's sacrifice there in her eyes and body as she moved to me. My zombie danced as the rounds penetrated its body. Bits of flesh arced from behind it, splattering tombstones, all the while leaning into the gun man, its arms rising as it was getting blasted, going for the throat.
Man-Three must have had twenty-round clips. As he clicked empty, my zombie's chest a hole that the starlight penetrated, its face a dark prison of blood and gore.
Protect, I thought at him. Protect.
A little slower due to damage, nevertheless, the zombie surged forward, tearing the butt of the M-16 from Man-Three's hands, tossing it like so much candy into one of the tombstones and cracking the corner off like a chipped tooth.
“God dammit! Take its head, fool! It'll keep coming,” Parker screamed, reaching us.
A knife glinted in the dark and sailed out toward my zombie, embedding itself thickly in his neck, but not severing, black blood flying outward and hitting everything in its path.
I whipped my head around in time to see that Bry lay on the ground and Gun-Holder was making steady progress toward us. His arm tightened like a noose around Jonesy, who was flailing and struggling in his grasp. John and Sophie knelt by Bry, his other hand empty of the knife he'd just thrown.
Don't give up.
My zombie was slowing down, each wound more grievous than the last.
Gun-Holder was dragging my friend by the throat and Jade was not to me yet.
Parker was on our ass as we made our way to Jade, the zombie distracting Man-Three with Gun-Holder dragging Jonesy towards us.
More zombies, that's the ticket.
As if on deadly cue, Tiff and I got busy with a few more as Parker grabbed Tiff by her hood and zombies poured from the ground.
Gun-Holder stopped in his tracks, Jonesy giving him hell.
“Hold still or I'll choke you into unconsciousness, shithead.” Jonesy did.
But he wouldn't do what he was told for long, he wasn't big on listening.
There were several zombies and now Parker held onto Tiff like a deathline. He sucked off our power, adding his to ours, it was numbing me.
The zombies looked at me, then turned to Parker.
Parker straightened arrogantly. “I am Master here.”
The zombies moved toward Parker.
I jerked Tiff just about off her feet and slung her to my left and away from Parker. “Stop!” I flung out to them.
They turned to me and Tiff, some without eyes, staring darkly at the two of us.
Parker looked at me. “This will not work, I am more powerful then you, more experienced. You cannot prevail.”
I wondered the same.
Never give up.
I turned with Tiff
launching ourselves at Jade, running to the zombie with the knife in its neck. The first to answer our call, my call.
Jade's hand clutched solidly in mine, we tore through the zombies, moving like bowling pins as we wove between them, some stroking our bodies as we came through, bolstered by our combined power.
“Stop them!” Parker yelled, pushing zombies aside, knocking a few over.
Hands reached out and I said, “No.” Their hands hesitated.
I reached my zombie just as Man-Three was taking the knife out, getting ready to plunge that blade home, killing my zombie for real. A sense of something lurked below the surface, just a feeling, and I went with it like a drowning man reaching for the lifeline, my last hope.
Jade and Tiff struggled to keep my pace as I landed next to my zombie, my knees sliding on the grass as my hand encircled the wrist that held the knife, Man-Three's eyes widening in surprise. I wasn't as strong, but I'd startled him, the element of surprise was enough.
My zombie understood, we were connected, his eyes glittering black diamonds, he snaked his hand out, grabbing my other wrist. The girls' hands fell away. Only the three of us connected now, the gun man, the zombie and me.
It took only a second to break his concentration and as he moved to finish the zombie taking my straining arm with him for the killing blow I thought, die.
A big sucking nothing happened for a heartbeat. Then Man-Three started shrieking, great gulping screams, one after another, as my power took from him.... and gave to my zombie.
It was watching a movie in reverse. My zombie started to fill out, the knife pushing out of his neck, falling to the ground. His cheeks filling in, the gaping hole of his chest filling in as I watched, the skin pooling together, flesh like water filling the void.
My eyes moved to Man-Three, the light in his eyes fading, his body growing stiller.
“Caleb, what are you doing?” Parker asked in a near whisper.
“Killing him,” I replied dreamily. If felt good to use this thing, my zombie was mending itself and this bad guy, very bad guy... would... would be gone.
“Caleb!” Tiff shrieked in my face.
“Huh?” My head swam toward her.
“Stop! You're killing him!”
Destiny's Dark Fantasy Boxed Set (Eight Book Bundle) Page 34