STRIKE: THE HERO FROM THE SKY (STRIKE TRILOGY, BOOK 1)

by Charlie Wood

  Jonathan was transfixed by the boy in the window. He pulled Susan nearer as she tried to get away.

  “Wait,” he said. “Wait.”

  A thunderclap rumbled. Tobin looked up. His eyes looked like they were dead.

  “Let her go,” he said.

  “No,” Jonathan said back, amused. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Tobin jumped down and started toward Jonathan. The pale man grew nervous.

  “You—you really think I’d do this alone, Tobin? No, I always save this kind of stuff for my friends. They enjoy it much more than I do.”

  With a snap of his fingers, Jonathan summoned Nelson and Miller from the shadows. They were two huge men in their early thirties, with the bodies of weightlifters, purple suits like Jonathan’s, and white, zombie-like faces. As they stood on either side of Jonathan, he looked to Tobin with a smile.

  “Plus,” he said, “I’d just hate to ruin another suit.”

  Tobin was calm. His fists were raised, and his eyes were glowing blue. Lightning streaked across the sky.

  Jonathan pointed at him. “Take him down.”

  Nelson and Miller started toward Tobin. Miller took the first swing, but the boy grabbed his fist, swung him around, and used his momentum to toss him into a bookcase. The shelves came tumbling down on top of the goon, sending books and shards of wood scattering across the floor.

  Lightning struck and thunder boomed.

  Jonathan was watching the fight with Susan, crouched in the corner. She tried to get away, but he held her wrists tightly, and took a small cloth bag from his pocket.

  “When you awake,” he said, pouring sand from the bag into his palm, “you’ll have no memory of me, the kid, or anything that happened tonight. Now sleep.”

  He blew the sand into Susan’s face and she dropped, her eyes fluttering.

  Tobin heard the woman fall and was distracted. In that instant, Nelson tackled him and they tumbled to the floor. Struggling, they awkwardly, but violently, exchanged several brutal punches, until Tobin felt Nelson push off of him and stand. When the boy looked up, he saw the goon looming over him.

  Nelson smiled. He removed two shining knives from his belt, holding them in between his fingers. Then, snapping his wrists, he flung them down at Tobin.

  The boy’s first instinct was to turn away, but then he stopped: the blades were tumbling toward him ever so slowly, like they were traveling through gelatin. Reaching across his body, he grabbed a book from the floor and held it in front of his face. He heard two THUNKS! in the book, one right after the other, and then everything returned to normal speed.

  Tobin looked at the front of the book. The two knives were sticking in its cover.

  Nelson was stunned. “What the...? How did you...?”

  Tobin stood up. His thoughts returned to him; they were fast, confused images, like somebody was replaying everything that had happened over the past ten minutes in fast-forward. The boy was shaken. His eyes were no longer glowing blue.

  “Neat trick,” a voice said behind him.

  The boy turned around. Jonathan was there.

  “But I bet you can’t beat this one.”

  The pale man smiled. As his mouth stretched into a grotesque crescent moon across his face, his teeth elongated into fangs. White fur sprouted from his hands and arms, and as he moved his head around agitatedly, bat-like wings ripped through his suit and stretched out across the room. Finally, when he looked to the ceiling, his nose flattened into a disgusting snout.

  Tobin stared at the bat-creature in front of him. It was gazing at the ceiling, panting and growling, until suddenly it snapped its head down and looked at him. Its eyes turned yellow.

  “Boo,” it said.

  Tobin backed away, panicking and swinging his fists. But Jonathan dodged every swipe. Taking a coiled whip from his belt, the bat-creature snapped it at Tobin, wrapping it around the boy’s legs. Tobin fell, crashing awkwardly against a chair.

  Jonathan pounced, landing on top of Tobin and pinning him to the floor with his hind legs. Laughing and growling, he slashed at Tobin’s chest over and over with his long fingers. The boy screamed, the pain unbearable, like his skin was being lanced with a fiery knife.

  Finally, Jonathan jumped off, and Tobin looked down. His chest was sliced open and bleeding, and there was a white acid sizzling on the wounds. He tried to stand but fell, his limbs suddenly feeling as if they were not there. All he could feel was the burning. The burning, the burning.

  Nelson and Miller stood over the boy. Jonathan knelt down and spoke to him.

  “I’m sorry, Tobin, but the bit of pain is necessary. We knew you wouldn’t come quietly, and we couldn’t take our chances with you…acting up. But, in just a few more seconds now, it’ll all be over. Don’t try and fight it.”

  He reached down and grabbed Tobin by his face, forcing the boy to look out a window.

  “Your world out there is on a timetable, Tobin, and one that is not in its favor. It has been on this course for decades, centuries, maybe even eons, and now we are finally coming to its end. It’s my job to help that end happen, and, unfortunately for you, that means erasing you, your name, and any trace that you ever existed.

  “You should know it has to be this way. We have no choice. We have to break you.”

  Tobin suddenly thought of his mother; she was standing on the front porch of their house, waiting for him to come home.

  The boy’s eyes flashed open. They burned bright blue. He had one more moment of clarity.

  He stood and pushed Jonathan away. Amazingly, stunningly, lightning bolts screamed out from the boy’s hands. The streams of electricity threw Jonathan across the store and he smashed into the cash register, his body contorting around the wooden counter before falling to the floor. As he lay there, unmoving, smoke rose from his body, and little dashes of electricity jumped across him.

  Lightning struck and thunder boomed.

  Nelson and Miller ran to Jonathan, the both of them very afraid.

  “Oh my god, Jon, are you okay?” Miller asked. “C’mon, man, we gotta get out of here! C’mon!”

  They helped Jonathan to his feet, then ran out of the store. Jonathan followed, with his arms across his ribs, and his body still smoking.

  Tobin fell. His mind and body were completely drained—he felt nothing except a dense tingling in his hands. Hearing a police siren, he crawled to a window and pulled himself up to it. Three police cars were speeding across the Chapman Bridge, and the rain was falling harder than ever. A faint ringing entered Tobin’s ears.

  He stood and stumbled across the room. He was weak and unbalanced; the store around him was nothing but a swirling mess of red-and-blue lights from the police cars outside. When he finally reached Susan, he lifted her and placed her on a couch against the wall.

  There was a mirror above the couch. Tobin looked at his reflection in it, but the face he saw was not his own: it was drawn and pale, and its milky white eyes were staring back at him lifelessly. Red-and-blue lights were dancing around the face like fireflies.

  This was the last thing Tobin saw before everything went black.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE MORNING AFTER THE STORM, Vincent Harris was standing in the security room of his skyscraper and watching a news broadcast. Onscreen, a young female reporter was outside of Jackson’s Bookstore, and police were investigating the area. Yellow crime-scene tape was crisscrossing the broken picture window.

  “Police were unable to apprehend the three suspects as they fled into the streets,” the reporter explained, “and upon entering the building, they found no items or cash missing from the register. One of the officers reported seeing a bright red flash as he was approaching the store, but saw no other signs of anyone when he—”

  The monitor was shut off. Vincent stood in front of it for a moment, tapping the remote controller against his chin, before leaving the room and stomping down the hall. When he reached his office, he passed by his bodyguard.
/>   “Rigel. Here.”

  Rigel followed Vincent into the office and closed the door.

  “Orion has gotten involved,” Vincent said, walking to his desk. “This will cause a delay in our plans, to say the least.”

  “Allow me to take care of it, sir,” Rigel said. “I will have no trouble finding him, and when I do, I will take care of him and the boy. Leave it entirely up to me.”

  “No,” Vincent said. “You’re much too important—I need you here with us.” He looked out at the city. “I had thought that Jonathan was more than capable of handling this on his own, but obviously I was wrong. Where are he and his two friends now?”

  “They came here immediately after abandoning the plan, sir. They were not followed.”

  “Good. And what did we do with them?”

  “I placed them under arrest. They’re waiting for you there now.”

  “Good.” Vincent mindlessly flipped through a file on his desk. “It’s too bad Jonathan never really committed like you did. I had high hopes for him. But, I guess everybody is wrong sometimes. Even us.”

  Rigel chuckled. “What would you like to do now, sir?”

  “Well, let’s send out the air division. If they aren’t able to get the job done, make sure that they can at least track Orion and report back to me. We still have plenty of time, but we can’t allow them to slip away any further.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rigel said. Then he turned and exited the office, eager to carry out his orders.

  Vincent looked down at the files on his desk. One of them contained various blueprints and documents, along with a photograph of Tobin.

  Vincent slid the photo away with his finger. Underneath it there was another photo—this one was of Orion.

  Vincent studied the two photographs.

  Tobin was lying in a field, asleep. It was beautiful, with the sun shining and the birds in the nearby trees chirping.

  There was a low rumbling. Tobin rolled over, groaning, and felt the damp grass underneath him. Confused, he reached out to touch the grass.

  The grass was blue.

  Tobin stood up. He looked around.

  The sky was yellow. The clouds were a light shade of pink. The leaves of the dense trees around him were blue, and waving from a slight breeze. A bird—a tall, skinny crane at least seven feet tall—flew from one of the trees to the next.

  The rumbling came again. Tobin turned to it, to the trees that surrounded the clearing. The leaves in that area were shaking. Faster and faster.

  Suddenly a blood-colored dinosaur burst into the clearing with a ROAR! The massive, tyrannosaurus-like beast had leathery wings on its back, a body covered in bumpy scales, and a hideous head the size of a Winnebago. As it lowered its neck, it eyeballed Tobin, snorted, and then charged, its feet hammering the earth.

  Tobin screamed, paralyzed with fear. The dinosaur closed in on him, roaring, its tail whipping back-and-forth. It was so fierce, so giant, so angry. But then…

  BOOM! A green explosion erupted against the dino’s face, causing it to crash to the ground. Its body skidded across the wet grass, and its lifeless head, mouth slung open and dripping with blood, came to a stop inches in front of Tobin’s feet. The boy looked down at it, with his eyes wide and his heart racing.

  Something grabbed Tobin’s arm. He looked there to find a six-and-a-half foot tall, blue-and-white Siberian husky. It was standing like a man, and wearing a cowboy hat, a brown leather jacket, and blue jeans. It was also wielding a very large gun.

  “We need to run,” the dog said to him.

  The dog pushed Tobin in front of him and they ran across the field.

  “What—what is going on?” Tobin gasped. “What are you?”

  “I’m a talking dog,” the talking dog replied. “Head towards that sky-ship.”

  Tobin looked ahead and saw a gleaming silver jet parked in the grass at the other end of the field.

  “Why are we running?” he yelled to the dog.

  “Take a wild friggin’ guess.”

  ROAR! Another winged-dinosaur emerged from the forest, shaking the trees with its deafening bellow. Luckily, though, the boy and the dog were only a few yards away from the silver aircraft, and they ran into a door that slid open on its side.

  Inside the craft, the dog ran into the cockpit, leaving Tobin behind in the cabin. The boy was surrounded by three rows of empty seats.

  “What is going on?” Tobin yelled. “What the hell is going on?”

  The dog sat in the pilot’s seat, pushing a series of buttons on the control panel. “Recognize that guy?” he asked.

  Tobin turned and saw Orion sleeping in a chair. “Yeah?”

  “You came here with him. You’re lucky I found you before they did.”

  “They who?”

  The dog turned around.

  “You serious?”

  The sky-ship shook violently. Tobin looked out a window; the maroon-colored dinosaur had now grabbed one of the ship’s wings with its jaws.

  “Ah, krandor,” the dog snapped, spinning back to the controls. “Hold on tight, kid.”

  The dog pushed a big red button, and a burst of blue fire shot out from the ship’s wing, surrounding the dinosaur. It roared and let go of the wing, allowing the ship to take off.

  Tobin fell back, knocked into a chair as the craft zoomed into the sky. Orion was awakened by the commotion, noticing the shaking, trembling sky-ship. Then he saw Tobin.

  “Stay there,” the old man said. “Don’t move.”

  Tobin gripped the armrests of his chair as Orion walked to the cockpit.

  “What’s happening?” he asked the talking dog.

  “I got your call, and as soon as I got here, two blood birds were approaching. One of them is on our butt right now.”

  Orion looked to a monitor in the cockpit; the dinosaur was flying through the air and following them.

  “Send me up,” the old man said, walking to the back of the ship.

  “Are you sure?” the dog asked. “You’re pretty wiped out, O, you should probably—”

  “Send me up,” the old man repeated.

  The dog shrugged. “Okay, you got it.”

  Walking past Tobin, Orion took a quiver of arrows from the wall, then stood in the center of the cabin. As he crouched down, he pulled a series of metal straps across his boots. The straps were attached to a metal plate in the floor.

  “Tobin,” the old man said, “this is my friend, Keplar Costello. He’s the pilot and owner of this ship we’re in, the Sky-Blade. Keplar, Tobin. Tobin, Keplar.”

  The dog stopped manning the controls long enough to throw Tobin a peace sign. “Hey, how’s it goin’, bro?”

  Tobin had a death-lock on the armrests. “Oh. Okay.”

  Orion finished strapping his boots to the metal plate and stood up. “Tobin, I’ve got a hell of a lot of explaining to do, I know, but I can’t really get into it right now.” He took an arrow from his quiver and strung it in his bow. “I’d just really rather not start explaining everything while we’re being chased by a dinosaur.”

  He looked into the cockpit.

  “Keplar, send me up.”

  “All right, you’re going.”

  The dog pulled a lever, and a hatch opened in the ceiling above Orion, sending cold air rushing into the ship. The old man was then raised upward by a hydraulic lift, which pushed him right through the open hatch and out onto the roof. When he was outside, the hatch closed.

  Tobin stared at the ceiling. He had no idea what was going on.

  “Hey, bro,” Keplar said, “you can come up here and watch, if you want to. It’s pretty sweet.”

  Tobin walked into the cockpit. On a monitor, he could see Orion; the old man was strapped by his feet to the top of the Sky-Blade, bracing himself in the wind.

  He could not believe he once did this for fun.

  With his old knees buckling, Orion stood atop the Sky-Blade and tried to keep his balance. When he felt halfway confident, he looked up an
d aimed an arrow at his target: the gigantic, blood-colored dinosaur flapping its wings above him.

  The lizard looked down and let out a tremendous ROAR!, and Orion had to duck when it swiped its spike-covered tail at him. Crouching, he restrung his arrow, but his fingers slipped, and the arrow went flying away.

  “Dammit!” he spat. He reached for another arrow, but then saw the lizard roar again. This time, a wave of fire burst from its jaws, and Orion had to fall forward to avoid the flames.

  Lying on his stomach, the old man grabbed a pipe on the ship’s roof and carefully watched his enemy. The lizard was swooping upward, readying itself for another attack. The old man was running out of time.

  He stood and steadied himself. He turned his eyes skyward and pulled back an arrow. The arrowhead erupted with fire. After carefully aiming the weapon, the old man let go of the string and let it fly.

  BOOM! The arrow exploded against the underbelly of the dinosaur with a bright red flash! Roaring, the lizard flew downward, losing speed, its wings flapping erratically. Orion fired another arrow and another and another, in three perfect motions: SWISH! SWISH! SWISH! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The blood bird’s massive body dropped, its head bowed. Soon, its wings stopped flapping altogether, and Orion watched as it whistled past the sky-ship and plummeted to the ground. It crashed there at a violent speed, sending up a plume of dirt and rocks and grass. When it cleared, Orion saw the dino lying there, never to flap its wings again.

  The old man sighed. As he put his bow into his quiver, he and the platform were lowered back into the Sky-Blade.

  “Yee-ha!” Keplar shouted, as Orion and the platform arrived in the cabin. “That was awesome, O! I haven’t seen a blood bird fall like that in years! That…was…the…krandor!”

  Orion unlatched his boots from the plate, collapsing into a seat. His arms trembled as he placed his bow on the ground next to him.

  “It might have been the ‘krandor,’ but it took a hell of a lot out of me. Dammit, I’m getting old.”

  Orion laid back and brought his arms across his stomach, and Tobin was shocked to see that the old man’s fingers were curled and smoking.