City of Twilight: Rise of the Hunter (The Vanguard Chronicles Book 1)

by Donald Stephenson III

  ​James felt the water hitting him, and he looked at his hands. The water was washing off the blood. He stood up in the rain, and held out his arms. He let the water pour over him, bathing in it. Even through the darkness he could see the blood running off the side of the building with the currents of water. He focused on his own heartbeat, which he could hear. He was becoming calm. He looked at his hands. Not only had most of the blood washed off, but they no longer looked like claws.

  ​He now fully understood what Dr. Shepherd meant when he said that the creature had instincts of its own. What now scared James was that he hadn’t noticed the transition, when the creature had started to control him. It was only afterwards had he realized it had controlled him.

  ​What instincts and reactions were his own, and what were the xenos'? He glanced around where he stood. Over half of the buildings in Old District didn’t have any power. Most of Old District in the horizon was dark, with small spots of power in various random places. More distantly he could see the lights from Capitol and East District, which made the rain above them have a faint glow.

  ​Old District was so large that both Capitol and East Districts could fit in it. It also had more people than any other district. James could see every soul, their glowing auras shining brightly through the walls and buildings. There were small sections of Old District where low income people lived in housing or apartment complexes. All of the other areas were filled with abandoned buildings that had been taken over by homeless. While he stood in the middle of the district, his senses could detect the life and terrain all the way to its edges. He could see all the life as lights in the darkness. The ground and layouts of the buildings were even clearly visible, as if his vision could pierce the walls and structures for a great distance like a radar.

  ​The plot where the Shepherd building stood, now a pile of rubble, captured his attention. The area surrounding it had been built up by someone. There were newer apartments and other structures. Several of them had been abandoned. People had tried to help others, and were crushed. Just like the people in the Shepherd Research Center were literally crushed.

  ​James looked at himself as he stood on the edge of the building. The armor still covered his torso, but was hidden under the shirt. The long jacket however had several bullet holes. He was completely soaked. He thought about discarding the jacket, displaying the obvious evidence of a fire fight. He then had an idea.

  ​My capabilities are limited to my imagination, he thought, I wonder how far I can take that. He concentrated on the xeno in his mind, trying to describe visually what he wanted it to do. Dozens of metal tendrils extended from his back, knitting into the jacket. After a few moments, he’d made the xeno interlace itself into the gray coat. It was now an extension of himself. The bullet holes and small tears were repaired throughout the coat as it became enhanced.

  ​Through the creature he could control the color and appearance of the jacket, as well as the way it moved. He thought of the possibilities for a moment. He thought about the trouble he’d had climbing buildings made of metal, and a solution came to him. He felt the jacket tremble quickly as the xeno shuddered within it. A large tendril connected his spine to the coat, spreading outward and inward as it formed into a metal that mimicked bone.

  ​He felt his spine strengthened through the xeno, and the bones morphing the jacket itself as they combined. As he extended the xeno’s metal bones outward, they grew long and sharp. When the transformation was completed, the xeno had used the jacket to form massive wings, that moved and flexed as easily as James could move his own arms.

  ​He was momentarily stunned by his transformation. The xeno itself must have much larger than he thought. It could take up a lot of space in a short amount of time. He wondered if it could somehow replicate its cells rapidly to generate such growth. The wings had the appearance of massive bat wings, although the thin flaps between the spindly metal bones had formed light metal feathers. They indeed looked more like how James would have pictured a dragon’s wings, spindly and glimmering; with a deadly appearance to them. I can form limbs, he thought as touched one of his outstretched wings.

  ‘I can’t imagine an army with this kind of power,” he said out loud to himself.

  ​Under his conscious command he made the wings shrink back down into his back. The metal bones folded and reduced themselves until they were small and barely noticeable, remaining outside his skin on his spine, but barely visible. His jacket returned to normal, although retaining a slight metallic sheen. James stared off the roof, contemplating his next action. What do I do, he thought. I don’t want to have to kill more people. He knew he’d have to fight his violent urges in every altercation. The xeno was always there, waiting for him to become weak or lose his guard.

  ​He closed his eyes, avoiding his vision. He focused his perceptions, trying to find the girl that was kidnapped, Elijah Vanguard’s daughter. She wasn’t anywhere in Old District. He hoped she was safe, but he worried about his safety as well. He decided to head back to the hotel he had checked into that morning. The one crucial thing he lacked was a plan, and that had cost the lives of at least twenty Civic Protection soldiers. He knew he couldn’t do this alone. He needed someone who could work with him much more than Dr. Shepherd had been able to do. He needed an ally. He needed a friend.

  11

  ​Elijah Vanguard sat in a borrowed car on the outskirts of Lower District. Lower District was larger than Capitol District, but stretching through the Northern and Western edges of Dirge. It lined up with Capitol District on those sides, with East District bordering the Eastern and Southern sides of Capitol. Old District connected to East District and Lower District, lining the rest of the city’s perimeter.

  It had been two days since his daughter had been kidnapped, and he’d gone through a lot of emotions in that period of time. She’d been kidnapped by undercover Civic Protection agents. He was sure of that. He didn’t understand their purpose, other than trying to silence him. Since his wife’s death, he hadn’t really stood up to the council or CP however, so it puzzled him that this would happen now.

  A friend of his, Luke Carmichael, had helped him get a message across the city through the network vids. A few hours from the time he’d visited the mayor, he received a phone call from a man who didn’t give him a name. The man said that Alicia was in Old District, dropped off at one of the V shelters his father had set up decades ago. The man hung up before he could say anything.

  When he found her at the shelter she was unharmed, although a bit shaken up. She’d told her an old homeless man had found her and dropped her off there. She couldn’t describe him anymore than that he was dirty with a beard.

  ​Whatever she’d experienced, she’d mostly recovered. There was blood on her clothes. When he asked her about it, she’d said the man made out of blades had killed all the men who had taken her. She was afraid of the man, but more afraid of the soldiers. She said they talked about things they were going to do to her. It frightened her.

  He didn’t know what to do, but he took her and would keep her safe. He knew she was still a target, so they had gone into hiding. She was hidden now. He was still trying to figure out what was going on, and why they took his daughter.

  ​He’d been sitting in the car for the last hour. A lot of strange things had occurred, and he was trying to make sense of it all. He’d been able to disappear, but it had felt too easy. His mind moved back to what had happened to Alicia’s kidnappers. Civic Protection had increased their presence in Old District, instituting a larger martial law and curfew that was now city-wide. The official statement from Civic Protection and the High Council was that they were undercover agents working on a sting operation to catch members of the so called ‘resistance’ when they were attacked by an unknown force.

  ​Elijah shuddered at the thought of Civic Protection and the High Council having as much control as they did. Even so, he knew they were all under someone named ‘Father.’ He was never a
ble to actually find out who Father was, or whether he was even real. The thought that one man could have so much power concerned him even more than Civic Protection or the High Council did. His wife and he had done a lot of work to uncover the truth. That is, until she was killed. His mind moved to his wife for a moment. He still missed her, even though it had been several years. He pulled a small data screen from his pocket. He loaded up a picture of a beautiful blond haired woman, smiling while holding a small infant. Callista with their baby, Alicia. That picture was taken only a few days before Callista had been killed.

  “I wish you were here, Callie," he said to the photo on the screen. "You always seemed to know what to do.” In fact, she seemed more knowledgeable on the city and the small resistance network they’d built than he was. He always suspected she had sources and allies that she never told him about. Probably to protect him.

  What he was concerned most about at this particular moment, was the man who had been following him for the last day and a half.

  ​Elijah had made sure not to go anywhere near his daughter was hidden, as it was obvious this man was watching him. He obviously wanted Elijah to notice him, making himself stand out in more than one occasion. Elijah had studied the mysterious figure from afar. The man wore dark glasses to hide his eyes. He was fairly tall and extremely athletic looking, although that seemed to be hidden in his stance and clothing. His figure was hidden in some dark pants and a long gray coat. The coat’s collar was flipped up, hiding the figure’s neck and jawline.

  ​Elijah suspected this man wasn’t with Civic Protection. He’d been very good at hiding himself and his daughter. This man could somehow find him and was showing up wherever Elijah went. It suddenly dawned on him that this person was watching him to sizing him up. He wanted to know more about Elijah. Why he wanted to size him up, that was another question.

  ​Earlier Elijah had grown frustrated and had parked the car to think for a moment without having to drive. He’d borrowed the car from a friend of his, and he knew it was reserved for their resistance movement. Civic Protection only checked vehicle tags in Capital and East District. They really ignored aspects of tighter security in Lower District. It made it easy when there were people or fugitives trying to hid from CP. There was not much security at all in Old District until recently. He felt powerless once again as he watched people passing the car slowly.

  ​The sound of breaking glass startled him as glass shattered all over his lap from the driver’s side window. A bald man with a sun tattoo on one side of his neck and tattered clothes pointed a silver pistol at him.

  ​“Give me your keys,” the man said, “or I blow your head off.” The man had a serious, tortured look in his eyes. One of them had a scar that ran across it. He pushed the pistol into Elijah’s temple menacingly. “Do it now,” the man shouted. Elijah began to take the keys from the ignition. A person suddenly grabbed the man from behind, throwing him backwards several feet with great force. The man flew into the sidewalk, rolling into an unconscious heap. The person who had just thrown the mugger moved around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door, getting in. Elijah saw to his surprise that it was the young man who’d been following him.

  ​“Let’s go,’” the young man said, “that probably attracted more attention than either of us wants.” His voice was calm and intelligent. Elijah started the car, and began driving. He glanced to his right to look at the young man, and then looked back at the mugger unconscious on the ground behind them.

  ​“He’s got two broken arms,” the young man said calmly. "He'll probably be fine.” The young man held up the silver pistol for a moment, and then put it in the glove compartment. “You might need this sometime.”

  ​They were driving for a few minutes quietly when Elijah finally decided to speak as he looked at the stranger. "So who are you? Why were you following me?” He stopped as he looked at the young man’s face. He smiled a little as he recognized him, but turned his face away to avoid eye contact for a moment.

  ​“You can call me James, although I can’t remember much more than that.”

  There wasn’t much traffic, and Elijah began to slow the car a little.

  “Do you want to know how I was able to toss that man like he was a piece of paper?” James asked. Elijah looked at him, noticing that the irises in James’s eyes were silver. Not just a gray color, but it looked as if they were made of metal. Light reflected off them like it did off chrome. They also looked tired, contrasting the rest of his face. “I’m not human. That’s how.” He closed his eyes for a moment. Elijah listened to him intently.

  ​“Civic Protection are getting more persistent, and more creative,” James said. “Their presence isn’t obvious in Old and Lower District, but they’re here. They actually have a stronger presence here than in the other districts. Old and Lower District are places that are more likely for a fugitive to hide in. I know they’re here because I can see them, I can feel their presence. Just like I can feel everyone else. It’s because I’m not human.”

  ​“Oh, I heard you the first time,” Elijah said, “and you look human to me.”

  ​“Yeah well, looks can be deceiving.”

  ​“If you’re what you say you are, if you really aren’t human, then why am I talking to you?”

  James paused for a moment before answering.

  ​“Because,” James said, “I saved your daughter.” The tires of the car squealed as Elijah swerved through traffic into a nearby alley. He stopped the car; putting it in park. He then turned off the ignition and sat for a moment silently.

  ​“She told me,” Elijah said, “that a man made of blades killed all the men. A monster that moved so fast it was like a blur, and its hands had knives for fingers. She said it looked like it was made of metal, and scaly. I thought she was traumatized and that she’d made it up.” Elijah looked straight at James. “Are you telling me that was you?”

  ​James allowed his eyes to completely cover in the metal, appearing as silver orbs. The xeno quickly covered the rest of his body in half a second. James’s mouth and nose were covered in a sort of face guard that made it look like a mask. The metal and scales grew out of his skin James talked through the metal mask, which stretched and moved as if it were made of tendons and sinews of flesh.

  ​“I am the creature.” As fast as the metal covered James, it disappeared back inside his skin. Once again he looked like a young man with silver eyes. Elijah shook his head a little, give a small laugh.

  ​“How, how did this happen to you?” Elijah said. “Where did you come from?”

  ​James recounted everything to Elijah. How he’d woken up in the rubble of the collapsed building, and had been helped by a homeless man. His journey to Dr. Shepherd, and then to the mayor’s office. He was a bit more reserved when he recounted how he had rescued Alicia, and the killing of the soldiers. After he finished, he could tell Elijah wanted to hear more.

  ​“What did you do afterwards?” Elijah said, "What made you decide to find me after you killed all those soldiers?” James looked up again, as if waking from his own thoughts.

  ​“Oh,” James said, “I’ve been watching you, and following you as you know. Dr. Shepherd now acts like I never came to see him, and I know he won’t be the ally I need. I can’t seem to keep track of the man named Dante. He travels all over the city, but disappears for periods of time, reappearing somewhere else. Somehow he evades my sixth sense, my mind’s eye. I can travel through this city quickly, but I can’t completely disappear and reappear somewhere else. They’re your enemies too, I know it.”

  ​“And so you think we can be allies,” Elijah said. “Tell me, why did you think you could trust me with all that you’re telling me?”

  James stared ahead. It was now much darker, and night was falling. It was even darker in the alley they were parked in. James was smiling, but Elijah could look at him and tell his wheels were turning.

  ​“I can see people for what they really
are,” James said. “I can also sense the truth, or lies when they’re spoken to me. It’s an ability I have. I don’t know how to explain it, but it affects my perception of people. Your past has left an imprint on your soul, and I can see that imprint with my mind’s eye. I see you and I know I can trust you. There are very few people I’ve seen like you. There is something inside you that makes you stronger than other people. Your daughter is like that too, but also different. I’m not sure why.” Elijah smiled again, not saying anything for a moment.

  ​“I’m not surprised this occurred in that research center,” Elijah said. “Dr. Shepherd had worked with my father for several decades. They founded places like the Shepherd Research Center all over Dirge. That one in Old District was one of the last. The council and Civic Protection had taken over or closed them all over the years. Fortunately they still leave the V shelters my father established all over Old District alone. My father had actually hinted to me once that a long time ago Dr. Shepherd had been a part of the resistance with him, and that he’d broken off from it for some reason.”

  ​“Well,” James said, “that explains a lot. I know Dante was involved in the project, but along with another one named Ares. I know there’s a lot Dr. Shepherd didn’t tell me. I’m sure by now the council has deduced that a xeno has gotten out and found a host.” Elijah sat quietly for a moment.

  ​“You’ve lost some memories,” Elijah said, “and I’m sure that factors in to how much Dr. Shepherd told you. You probably need to remember things naturally, you can’t just be told something.” Elijah looked at him for a moment.

  ​“Why didn’t you just attack Dante,” Elijah asked, “kill him like you did the soldiers in Old District?” James looked at Elijah, and his eyes looked even more tired.

  ​“Despite what I’ve done,” James said, “I don’t want to kill anyone. I can’t stop thinking about what I did earlier. It shouldn’t be my place to decide who should die. I just want them to see justice. They need to be stopped. All of it.”