10 Fatal Strike

by Shannon McKenna

  Miles tried to swallow again, but the mechanism seemed frozen.

  “I want that shield, Mr. Davenport. I’ve tried with reason, with politeness, with bribes. I’ve offered you the world,” Greaves’ voice was petulant. “And yet we’ve come to this. Silva, Levine, get Lara out of the vault. And get the ax out of the toolshed. I want results. Now.”

  Miles fought for breath for the next few minutes, still almost immobilized, but Greaves was evidently punishing him by ignoring him.

  Then the doors were flung open. The pressure on him lifted. Miles rose to his feet, shaking the chunk of chair free. One sharp wrench and the splintered chair back broke into two pieces, leaving his hands separated if still taped to bulky, awkward chunks of splintered furniture. He locked eyes with Lara as Silva dragged her into the room, the point of the knife to her throat. The red-haired woman held an ax.

  “Bring her over to the sculpture,” Greaves directed.

  As they approached, Greaves’ telekinesis clamped down again, so tightly, he could barely make his lungs expand. They pulled Lara over to a black marble stand that had the huge glazed pottery vase on it, not far from him. Greaves approached them slowly. Savoring the moment.

  “Put her right hand up on it,” he said.

  The dark guy grabbed Lara’s pale, slender hand and placed it on top. Lara held her head high, and looked resolutely away from it.

  “This is the last time you’ll use that hand, Lara,” Greaves said. “I genuinely regret that. You were so talented. Silva, do it.”

  Silva looked pale, his lips tight, but he took the ax that the woman proffered. Lara was evidently immobilized by Greaves as well, except for her eyes. Like Persephone. Tall and straight. Regal.

  She did not deserve this shit. This was fucking unacceptable.

  Silva lifted the axe. It came flashing down—

  Energy flashed out of his suddenly gaping shield, to counter the laws of physics. Hundredths of seconds crawled by. The ax blade hung in the air, frozen. Inches above Lara’s slender wrist.

  Silva’s face was a hideous grimace, morphing into shock. The red-haired woman’s mouth was open too, but the sound was stretched out, distorted and unintelligible. The ax was torn out of Silva’s hand. It hit the wall, bounced off, fell, leaving an ugly mark.

  A flash of pain, like an explosion in his head, and . . . oh, God . . .

  The bastard was inside.

  Miles crushed in the grip of a gigantic strangling shadow octopus, tentacles choking, probing, squeezing . . . oh Christ, that hurt ...

  He fought back faintness. Fought for enough motor control to breathe, stay on his feet. When he managed to focus his eyes, Lara was on the ground, halfway across the room. Hand to her face, nose bleeding copiously. Greaves’ invasion had hurt her, too.

  The red-haired woman and Silva were backing away, very slowly and nervously. Hoping not to be noticed.

  Greaves stood there, a manic grin of pure gloating delight on his face. “So strong! Amazing! It’s not just a shield, it’s a fortress!”

  Miles clutched his temples, body rigid. SHOW ME. The blast of coercion was monstrous.

  He didn’t just obey. He was laid bare, X-rayed, dissected, eviscerated. He showed Greaves things he hadn’t known he knew, things he’d never even articulated, things there were no words for, just images, analogs. Flows of braided energy, intricate webs, feeds from the energy centers in his body he’d only been faintly aware of.

  Greaves was making his own citadel now, copying the information that Miles had given him with incredible speed.

  “Yes,” Greaves mumbled, eyes dilated, with intense concentration. “Yes, of course. That’s wonderful. Absolutely brilliant.”

  Miles could still barely breathe, but something was happening, spaces opening up. Dark places filling with light. Cramped places loosening. The pressure was shaking something loose. Something new and big and raw. Powerful. It gave him traction, to counter that crushing energy, and . . .

  push back.

  Greaves let out a shocked cry and jerked, his hand going up to his head. “What . . . what the hell?” he gasped.

  Miles jabbed again, with everything he had.

  Greaves redoubled his own pressure, his face darkening. “You arrogant little piece of shit!” he snarled. “I was training my mind for combat when you were a baby playing with fucking alphabet blocks!”

  He managed to make his vocal apparatus function. The words came out in a thick, rasping croak. “So hit me . . . Grandpa.”

  Greaves lifted his arms, and brought them sharply down with a roar that echoed like a thunderclap. The windows of the room exploded outward, a shattering crash. The light bulbs all exploded. The sculpture on the marble stand cracked, the entire top and part of one side tumbling to the ground with a majestic crash. Twisted stalactites from the fallen section skittered across the room. The remaining ones stuck up from the base of the inside of the sculpture like ragged teeth.

  Miles kept grappling. He was losing ground. He had the raw strength, but he didn’t have the agility, the practice. He was clumsy, slow, still figuring it all out. Greaves was just too fucking good.

  So he fell back on the one thing he seemed to have a special knack for . . . pissing the guy off.

  He spat blood from his mouth. “That’s the best you can do?”

  Greaves’ eyes widened, and he gathered his energy for the final, fatal blow, arms lifting again. Miles braced himself—

  “Geoff’s awake,” Lara said softly.

  29

  Greaves’ wild-eyed gaze whipped around to her, saw her crouched near Geoff’s cot. “Get away from him!” he shrieked.

  Lara’s body literally rose up into the air, as if she were a cat being swatted with some huge hand. She landed twelve feet across the room on her side, hard. The ceramic Persephone, knocked loose from her prison, lay a few feet away from her, snapped off at the base, but still whole. Lara grabbed her by the ankles.

  Greaves was staring at his son, astonished.

  Geoff’s eyes were open and enormous in his shrunken face.

  Lara struggled to her feet. Greaves had forgotten her. He was still immobilizing Miles, who swayed, locked in that unnatural pose, staring at her. His eyes flicked to the statuette in her hand, to Greaves, then back up to her face. His lips moved, silently. Now.

  Greaves’ mouth gaped as he moved toward his son, arms outstretched. His eyes were almost soft. “Geoff? Ah, God. Geoff.”

  Geoff tried to move his cracked, purplish lips, but no sound game out. His eyes were clouded, gummy, and dimmed. He looked past his father toward Lara. His lips moved. She could see the boy Geoff staring at her, his huge blue eyes very clear as the smothering darkness closed around him. Silently mouthing a word, but she was so rattled by the double realities, she couldn’t read it. She didn’t understand.

  “What is it, son?” Greaves moved closer. “Open your mind. I’ll read it directly if you can’t talk. I’ll do anything you need.”

  She suddenly understood the word Geoff had tried to mouth.

  Now.

  She bolted across the room and swung the statuette, bashing the side of Greaves’ head with it. He grunted, staggered.

  Miles sprang up the second he jolted free of Greaves’ telekinetic clinch. He grabbed the older man, and flung him higher than was humanly possible.

  Greaves landed—on her broken sculpture. Skewered. One stalagmite protruded from his throat, another from his belly. His eyes were wide, infuriated, and the room trembled with red rage . . .

  The feeling softened, dissipated. His eyes went empty.

  Miles fell to his hands and knees, panting. Lara stared at the thing in her hand. It no longer looked like a statuette. It looked like the murder weapon that it was. Persephone’s face, which had been a delicate glaze of flesh tones and pinks, was shiny and wet with blood.

  It fell from her stiff hand to the ground, clattering and spinning.

  Sudden movement caught her eye. Geoff was rolling
off his cot. He hit the ground, landing on his back.

  She hurried over to him, catching her breath when she saw the blood. It welled up, gushing from a terrible wound in his throat, and another in his wasted, concave belly. Blood streamed down the side of his head, too, shockingly red against his gray skin.

  Then she realized, with a shudder of confusion, that he was not bleeding. Or rather, it was the dream Geoff that bled, the child-man, in her vision. She was staring at them both simultaneously. The wasted older man’s skin was still unmarred. And yet, she knew somehow that the wounds were still fatal.

  He gazed into her face, lips moving silently. She leaned down, sliding her arm beneath his shoulder. Cradling him carefully. The little boy, the skeletal man. One and the same. And both dying.

  “Oh, Geoff,” she whispered. “God, Geoff. I’m so sorry.”

  Miles knelt beside her. His eyes were haggard and shadowed.

  “He melded with Greaves,” she told him. “I felt it. Total fusion. He opened his shield, and his father just . . . swallowed him. The wounds . . . those are Greaves’ wounds, but he has them in the dream world. I can see them. He’s bleeding to death. Except that you can’t see it.”

  Miles’ hand clasped her shoulder, squeezing. “Oh, baby.” His voice was rough, shaking with exhaustion.

  “He woke up for me.” Lara cradled him, her face wet. “Geoff. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Geoff formed a word, with bluish, flaking lips.

  “What was that?” Lara bent, put her ear to his lips. Strained with every nerve to hear him.

  Free. It was a faint, creaking sigh of a sound, she was not sure from what plane of existence. But she heard it.

  She lifted her head, startled. He was smiling with his eyes.

  As she watched, that smile evaporated, leaving his wasted body a delicate husk in her arms. The boy had faded from her mind’s eye.

  Lara gently laid him down. She closed his eyes and could not speak, or move, or breathe. Just seeing that beautiful blond boy child. Her quiet friend. Her little guide. Flying free, at last.

  “Rest in peace,” Miles said, hoarsely.

  She nodded. Miles helped her up onto her feet. She turned to him, reaching out, eyes tear-blinded. Laid her hands against his chest, just to feel how warm and solid and real he was.

  It was so terribly quiet. She couldn’t believe the quiet.

  She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “So, um. Now what?”

  Miles covered her hands. “We call the cops. We give the beaker with whatever that organism is to the CDC. We let it all shake down however it wants to. Where’s . . .” His body tightened. “Oh, fuck, no.”

  She twisted, alarmed, to look where he was looking. “What?”

  “The beaker,” he said. “It’s gone.” He strode over to the briefcase with the molded foam, then looked wildly around the room. “Anabel,” he said. “That crazy bitch ran off with the virus. Come on!”

  He grabbed her hand. She sprinted after him, knees wobbling.

  They burst out the front door to see the taillights of the RV lumbering down the driveway at top speed. Slowing for the turn, but already two hundred meters away. Miles shouted obscenities, and sprinted after it, yelling.

  “Idiot,” came a gravely voice from behind Lara. “That’s not me. That’s just the medics. The ones that took care of the turnip. Deserting the sinking ship.”

  Lara spun around, hand to her throat. Anabel was poised in the doorway behind her, holding the beaker up, uncorked and sloshing.

  Her other hand held a gun, which was pointed at Lara’s head.

  Anabel’s gun hand shook, but at this range, it would almost be impossible for her to miss.

  “Anabel. Don’t do this.” Lara tried to keep her voice soothing and reasonable, but her desperation grated on her own ears. “This virus, it’s not how Greaves told everyone it would be. It will cause a global—”

  “Shut up.” Anabel circled her, the gun just inches from her face, driving her until her back hit the wall of the house. “I know. I was there, remember? I saw your visions. I saw the statue with birdshit on its head, I saw the people stumbling around like they were lobotomized. It’s perfect. It’s exactly what I want. It’s what they all deserve.”

  “Anabel, please, listen—”

  “No, you listen!” Anabel whipped her head around, and fixed her reddened, sunken eyes on Miles, who was approaching, and jabbed the gun barrel beneath Lara’s chin. “Not one step closer, you filthy freak.”

  Miles stopped, holding his hands up. “Don’t. I’ll be good.”

  “I know your tricks,” she said. “You’re a telekinetic, like Greaves. But I can feel it before it takes hold, and if you try to freeze me I’ll pull the trigger before you can stop me. Understand, freak? I’ve been waiting for you, see. I’ve been wanting to tell you how I feel about scum like you for years. I want to give you a taste of the shit you dish out. See how much you like it.”

  “Sure,” he said gently. “Just calm down. I won’t do anything.”

  “You scum,” Anabel quavered. The chilly gun barrel shook violently beneath her chin, pressing deep. “They’re all scum, though, you know that? You two aren’t telepaths, so you don’t know, but everyone is filthy inside. You too, you dirty whore. But this?” She jerked the beaker up high, as if making a toast. “This puts a stop to it. This is like a tidal wave of disinfectant. This is the ultimate Lysol.”

  “But they’ll all die!” Lara protested.

  “Let them! Let the babies starve in their cribs before they grow up to be filthy, too! And you, and me! Him, most of all!” She gestured with the beaker, making the liquid slosh dangerously close to the edge. “Sick pervert! Months, you had her shackled in the dark. And you liked it. You pig!”

  “You’ve got me mixed up with somebody,” Miles said.

  “Shut up!” she shrieked. “You liar. Lying filth!”

  The time between the echoing drumbeat of Lara’s heart dilated into vast silences, like pools she could dive into, full of everything she had never wanted to know about Anabel. She gave in, fell into it.

  And opened her mouth to speak. “No, Jilly,” she said softly.

  Jilly? What the hell?

  It was true what Anabel said about his telekinesis. He wasn’t smooth or quick enough to get a grip before she pulled that trigger. And the open beaker swirled and sloshed. Anabel was not paying attention to it. She was staring at Lara, her expression naked and frightened.

  “What?” she said. Her voice seemed higher, softer.

  “That wasn’t Miles, Jilly.” Lara’s voice was as even and calm as if she weren’t being held at gunpoint by a crazy woman. “That was Mr. Welcher. He was the one who did that to you. Not Miles.”

  Anabel shuddered. The gun wavered. Liquid sloshed. Anabel shook her head, violently. “No. No, you’re lying.”

  “He’s not here, Jilly,” Lara said. “Put the gun down.”

  “Don’t,” Anabel snarled. “Don’t try to trick me.”

  “I’m telling the truth. Miles isn’t the bad one. Mr. Welcher was. And you’re not dirty. You’re not filth. That was him. Not you.”

  Anabel hesitated, confused, and then her expression hardened. She let out a short, ugly laugh. “Maybe not before, but I’m filth now. Too late for me. Maybe I can chug-a-lug some of this. Clean myself up.” She swished the liquid in the beaker. “Or even better, I’ll just throw it on you.” Anabel swung the beaker in Lara’s direction.

  “No!” Miles yelled, leaping forward.

  Anabel snarled like a feral cat. The beaker soared up . . .

  The gun went off, bam. The beaker froze in the air, suspended. The gun’s kick had forced Anabel’s arm up. Miles clamped her into immobility so she could not shoot again, but Lara was sliding down the wall, hand clamped to her wound, a streak of bright red blood smeared on the white planks behind her.

  Anabel’s eyes shone with fury as she fought him. She sagged, put her chin over the
gun barrel—

  Bam. The contents of Anabel’s head fanned behind her on the white siding.

  Miles didn’t even watch her fall. He righted the beaker, lowered it to the floor, and dove for Lara. Shoulder, not chest, thank God. So pale.

  He wrestled himself out of his coat, ripped out some of the flannel lining, pressed the wad of fabric against her wound while groping inside his coat for the smartphone hidden in the lining. An eternity of one-handed fishing before he found the thing. He switched off the recording mode, smearing the touchscreen with so much blood he could barely see the numbers on the keyboard to dial nine-one-one.

  He got someone on the line, delivered details as coherently as possible. Address, ambulance, police, people shot, heavy bleeding, yada yada. He let the phone drop, forgotten, and concentrated on Lara’s wound. Christ, so pale. Her lips, almost blue. But she was smiling.

  “You’re going to be fine,” he told her.

  She nodded faintly. I love you, she mouthed.

  “Me, too.” The rag was soaked. He put more pressure, wincing as she gasped.

  “You killed Greaves.” It was a man’s voice, awestruck. “Jesus, how did you do that? How the hell did you kill that guy?”

  Miles looked around. It was the big dark guy. Silva. The woman followed him out, too, the redhead. He was intensely aware of the uncorked beaker, but the two of them made no move to approach it.

  “That’s amazing,” the redheaded woman said, her voice admiring.

  “Do either one of you have medical training?” he asked.

  The two glanced at each other and shook their heads.

  “Then shut the fuck up and get down on the ground, hands where I can see them,” he said.

  “You’re as powerful as he was,” the woman said. “My God. You’re just like him. Telekinesis, coercion . . . how did you do it?”

  “I am not like him,” he snarled. “Lady, what part of ‘shut the fuck up’ do you not understand?”

  She batted her large, hazel eyes. “We could work for you,” she offered hopefully. “With psi-max, we can do anything you want. Greaves controlled our supply, but if you could just get us more psi—”