by Ian McCain
Ernie needs to hop on to the back of the southbound line running downtown into Manhattan. He uses the crossover to make his way to the other platform, working hard to maintain his focus and to avoid eye contact with other travelers. Being the only white boy in a train station notably darker is already drawing enough attention—if he makes it known that his eyes are reddish black too, he’ll be in for some significant scrutiny.
He settles into the shade on the back side of the crossover. He will try to make his way to a relatively empty car and then use the junction point between the cars to make his way out into the subway line once it is headed back underground.
The train rolls in, well after Ernie has been alerted to its presence. His senses are so tuned that he is once again aware of its approach minutes before its arrival in the station. The back two cars are relatively vacant considering the time of day, and he hops into them. As the trains pulls out, heading southbound into the tunnel, the sky above begins to open its bounty onto the earth below, splashing large drops of rain onto the train.
Once the train has made it into the tunnel a few feet, Ernie heads to the crossthrough. He slides open the heavily weighted doors and pushes his way into the junction. The door that would allow him to exit from this area and into the tunnel is locked, likely with some sort of magnetic deadbolt. He kicks his foot into the door and with ease dislodges the housing for the deadbolt and swings the door wide into the tunnel. It catches on a passing support girder and slams closed, cracking the hinges and sending the doors tumbling into the tunnel.
--Shit!
He can hear the puzzled sounds of concern coming from the other passengers on the train. If he is going to get out without any other questions, he needs to jump out now.
This is going to hurt, no matter how amped up he is—he isn’t going to get out of this without some major injuries. He grits his teeth and swallows. Peers out the door and is able to see the oncoming girders. He waits for them to pass and times his jump perfectly, propelling himself out of the car and into the subway tunnel.
As he moves through the air, time nears a crawl. He is aware of everything around him, his momentum, how to respond to the inertia and his descent onto the ground. He twists and turns, contorts his body so that his feet are facing the outside wall of the northbound lane. He lands with his left foot on the wall and pulls his right leg in allowing him to quite literally tuck and roll out of the spill.
After four quick head-over-foot somersaults, he stands up. His arms and pants are dusty and dirty, but there is no other evidence of an injury on his body.
--Hmm?
After a moment he is overwhelmed by the smell of the Virus. His abilities immediately switch focus from suiting his kinesthetic needs and center on the senses. This is certainly a new development and something that Ernie is still unfamiliar with—how his abilities seem to be even further increased since the Rage, but how they seem almost selective. He can focus on any one and it improves, but at the expense of something else.
The Virus is everywhere. Like a house being fumigated, there are thick ropes of smell hanging in the air and whirling clouds of vapor being spun by passing trains before settling back into the air. The scent is flowing out from a source. He begins to make his way toward it, certain that he is at least on the right trail to the boy.
As he makes his way further into the network of tunnels he becomes acutely aware that he is not alone in this tunnel. That he and the punk he is tracking are not the only infected people in the tunnels. He can pull out a separate smell. The other blond man he saw just a few nights ago, chasing that thing on the roof. He’s down here too. Probably tracking the little shit as well.
Chapter 23
London, 1828
It has been a very long time since Antonios first made his way from the Seaport of Constanja.
He had stowed away on the Neiir Dom, a commercial shipping vessel with clean papers whose crew made most of their lucrative treks with their willingness to conceal additional shipments deep in the belly of their cargo hold, free from taxes and tariffs. Antonios had overheard two sailors in a port side pub discussing the rumors of the ship being a smuggling vessel, and Antonios immediately knew that this was his way out of Romania. After he had gorged himself on their blood and stuffed their bodies into an oak barrel he found himself imagining that that by remaining at sea he could limit the carnage his condition caused.
That night as the ship was anchored out in the bay, he swam out to it and pulled himself up the ragged rope of the anchor. Wanting to minimize his harm, he hid in the shadows of the lower deck. Two weeks into the journey, after he had killed the third seaman to have drunkenly made their way below, the rumors on the boat began to spread about a curse. Hushed whispers that a demon lived below the deck. Some sort of monster, a punishment from God. When they stopped at the next port he left in the middle of the night, taking refuge in another ship for the next few weeks.
He did this for years, in the process traveling to numerous foreign shores. He spent his time learning various languages as he had in the woods, learning secrets of boat captains and passengers, overhearing plans of mutiny, coups d’état, treachery, opportunity. In that time he enriched himself with a great deal of knowledge about the world and, even more important, a great deal of information on the powerful people within it. Details about people and their businesses. The willingness of those without scruples to brag about their secretive efforts to others equally bereft of morals was striking.
The time at sea changed his view of humanity. Having heard the secrets of so many, his contempt for mankind and the illusion of decency eventually gave rise to a plan. An awareness that he appeared to be the only human he encountered still clinging desperately to humanity. A way for him to further his own interests absent the restraints he had for so long put on himself.
Yes, his time at sea was enriching. However, nothing benefited him more than the knowledge that he could control his hunger. Control his desire. He had discovered in all those years at sea that he could refrain from going on a rampage and pull himself back from a continuous blood lust. Sure, he had left many ghost ships over the years, vessels absent any living crew members, sailing blindly into the seaside of various harbors, while he himself swam to shore in the night. But in these rampages he gained strength, he learned control.
Antonios finally arrived in London, armed with a great deal of information which he used to elevate himself to a man of status. With status and wealth he could apply resources to understanding his condition. Though he had heard so many refer to him as a demon or monster, he knew this to not be entirely true. He was not pure evil, but he was being pushed by a thirst, by something inside him. It would be nearly a generation before Ivosky discovered the Virus and nearly another thirty years from then before the explosion of information on infectious diseases and bacteria.
That was the benefit of the Virus though. An understanding beyond your years and preternatural insight. Antonios had seen sickness spread through his village, had witnessed it ravage the passengers of numerous ships. Even without the tools needed to properly run scientific experimentation he was able to see very obvious patterns of how disease and sickness spread. He imagined that there could be something very small, hidden in his blood, co-opting his better intentions and compelling him to feed it. A parasite hidden within.
So with this assumption, and knowing that he needed to find a way to establish a life and fill it with purpose, he began to enact plans built over nearly a decade at sea.
He made his way to the homes of several people he had scandalous and damaging knowledge about. When they opened the door, most shooed the fair-skinned and meek-looking young man away dismissively. That was until he made it known that he had information that they would like to keep quiet. Then they listened. In all his visits, most acquiesced quickly to his requests. Wanting property, wanting money, wanting introductions into social life—all components of an expanding plan. He did however find himself at the end of
a pistol of one of the more amoral men on whom he had information.
Wallace Andrew Baylor, a man who had laughed with a fellow conspirator about that last face made by a man they had murdered the year before. Apparently it was a look of shock. He had been a competitor in their shipping business and both had killed the man rather than innovate or take additional steps to remain competitive. Antonios knew that the man’s body had been walled up in the cellar of Lord Baylor’s manor, apparently with a perplexed visage and bullet hole in the chest.
When he brought this knowledge to Lord Baylor, Lord Baylor first acted in contemptuous denial, as most did, but he did eventually ask why Antonios did not involve the authorities. It was when Antonios was explaining that he required Lord Baylor transfer ownership of a parcel of land and the warehouse located on it currently used as storage for shipping that Lord Baylor shifted his focus from Antonios’ words toward his own preservation. Antonios was detailing that the property must be secured in the name of Lord Baylor’s murderous co-conspirator when a metal statue hit his skull.
Lord Baylor had withdrawn a cast-iron statue—an owl carrying a fieldmouse in its claws—from the fireplace mantel and heaved it into the back of Antonios’ head. The corner of the statue crunched through the skull plate and into the soft grey of Antonios’ brain. As he lay on the ground, his vision fading from blood loss, a bullet tore through his back and out the middle of his chest.
Antonios was temporarily knocked unconscious but the Virus worked very quickly to restore the damage to his brain and the bones of his skull. Mending the fractures and healing the soft tissue damage to his chest and lungs. Antonios awakened to his body being dragged down the stairs of the manor into the brick cellar. Lord Baylor was anticipating that he would once again be successful in hiding a body in the brickwork of the cellar. With each tug on Antonios’ ankle, Lord Baylor alternately cursed Antonios’ existence and expressed that he would kill his criminal cohort for this treachery, “just as soon as the mortar sets.”
Lord Baylor paused in his efforts ever so briefly to catch his breath. As he turned to check on Antonios’ corpse, he was quite surprised when the meek-looking corpse hoisted him in the air by his throat with only one hand. Lord Baylor choked out an apology before Antonios ripped into his throat and drank deeply from him, leaving only a shallow pulse and a greatly lightened supply of blood.
--Perhaps, Lord Baylor, you will be the first.
As Lord Baylor’s vision began to fade, small bursts of light like a swarm of angry fireflies exploded into the edges of his sight, then collapsed in toward the center of his vision. His last thought before being pulled from consciousness was the awareness of pain as a hole was cut through his cheek and a taste. A distinctly foul coppery flavor, most certainly from the warm blood washing down his throat.
***
Antonios was not certain if Lord Baylor would ever wake again. He imagined not, but was hopeful to learn more about his own condition. He had for years pondered whether he was inhabited with evil or more likely some sort of disease. He had witnessed disease make its way around many of the ships that he was on, spread by the unclean nature of sailors and the confined spaces of a ship. Regardless of who the first was to fall ill, those who came in contact with them would soon manifest similar symptoms. Within a short span, if the people infected were not confined to a specific area, all would soon carry the weight of fever or cough. It seemed only logical that his condition could also be similarly imparted.
The idea of illness being transferrable had been around for decades, but he had the benefit of his expanded mental capacities and determined that his condition—be it curse or be it disease—was caused by coming in contact with blood.
But regardless of his own ponderings he had no concrete evidence. He had never met another person like him, and he had no idea if he could pass on the condition to another person. All he could do was hope that he could learn something from Lord Baylor, whose shallow breaths had started to stabilize. The wounds in his neck and face had completely scabbed over.
This is a good sign, Antonios thought to himself. He was unfamiliar with what a normal human body could recover from, since he had discovered that he could recover from just about anything, and it had been a lifetime since he had experienced any illnesses or lasting injury.
***
Two days had passed since Antonios first made Lord Baylor’s rather unpleasant acquaintance. Sure, he had first gone to meet with him to extort something from the man, but still, he had not expected that the man would simply try to kill him. Antonios had killed hundreds over the years, but was not happy about any of them. He was acting out of necessity, acting out of the need to survive. Lord Baylor was simply acting to preserve his wealth and station in life, nothing more. This garnered him no sympathy from Antonios. He mused on how his perceptions on the character of men had grown and changed in the years since he was first touched by the demon.
It was in the midst of that thought that Antonios watched as something spectacular began to happen. Lord Baylor, a pale husk of his former self, barely clinging to life, covered with scabbed-over lacerations on his neck and with a deep hole in his face, stirred ever so slightly. Then as Lord Baylor let out a pained moan, the scabs in his neck began to be absorbed into the skin, and the hole in his face filled in like sand poured slowly into a divot in the ground. The thinned hair of the aged Lord Baylor thickened, with wisps of dark hair erupting from the skin on his head. Age spots and scars faded until all had simply disappeared, leaving healthy, radiant and youthful skin in their place. After the last vestiges of old age were taken, Lord Baylor was transformed into a younger version of himself.
Just this bit of information on how the disease brought youth back to this old man, as it had similarly brought Antonios from a small child to a young man in the same mysterious and rapid manner, filled Antonios with a sense of hope and purpose. He knew that with Lord Baylor he would be able to learn a great many things. Excited by what he had witnessed, Antonios pressed a fireplace poker firmly into the skin just below Lord Baylor’s Adam’s apple. With this he opened his eyes, taking in a panic-filled gulp of air.
***
Lord Baylor had not expected to be tied to a chair in his own cellar, nor had he expected to have his feet and legs completely immobile, but more than anything, he had never expected to open his eyes again. So when he did, Antonios could tell that he was confused by the volume with which the world was now operating, and terrified of Antonios.
Leaving him untied would have been a mistake—if he had even a fraction of Antonios’ own strength then it would have been an unnecessarily difficult night of study. So Antonios had stripped the old man of his clothes, tied him firmly to a chair in the cellar and then meticulously bricked his body up to the middle of his torso and poured the brickwork full of mortar. From his navel to the ground Lord Baylor was virtually entombed by brick and mortar, which had only recently set, just in time for him to show any signs of healing.
Antonios was not interested in creating another like himself, but rather in understanding his own condition, using Lord Baylor as his best possible subject of study. It was time that he know the demon inside him. It was with this intention that he began in earnest to study Lord Baylor, to learn all that he could about his condition, with his newly acquired laboratory rat fixed with permanency to the ground of the cellar floor.
Chapter 24
Tayvon moves swiftly and nimbly through the tunnels, using every opportunity that comes up to test his physical prowess. He was always physically adept. Though not a true fighter or a tough-as-nails badass like some of the others in the crew, he was still impressively agile, able to navigate with ease many areas of the concrete jungle that are too dangerous to entice others. Now he is deep in thought as he alternates between running on the overhead beams and skittering along the ground like a caged animal recently loosed.
Tayvon the man is gone. So what is he now? More than a man, less than a man? Clearly he is capab
le of horrors, but this is not new. Is he now Tayvon the monster? Tayvon the superhero? Not likely. The supervillain? Maybe. The god?
His mind is awash with all the potential of his new abilities and the life that it can make for him. How to use them to benefit himself, where to go, who to tell. What to say when telling someone. It’s as if he’s won the lottery somehow. He’s fast, strong, and able to heal from any injuries. The options are so vast and so exciting to him that he can’t stay focused on any one topic. His life has been hard to this point, and he has never been one to put much effort into affairs of the mind. At best he could hope to be just another soldier in the NHP army. But now, hell, he can be the general. Fuck it, he can be his own one-man army.
As excited about his new skills as he is, he’s also still concerned over how he was the night before. Unable to break past the glass wall holding him in silent observance of the horrors his body carried out. Scared of the hunger that he felt. Regardless of his fears, he is certain about one thing. He is not happy with how things played out with Dit-Low and Endo.
They are supposed to be like family now; NHP and Lobos. That was the deal when they changed colors; it came with protection. But that was a lie. In his determination to settle the score with Endo and Dit-Low he is willing to pay the toll in blood to exact his revenge, for a betrayal by supposed brothers.
They are about to find out that this dog bites back. And that he’s not just some kinda fool they can beat around on.
Tayvon continues west on the number 2 line heading downtown toward Harlem. Jumping up into the supports or hugging tight against the brick work within the wall nooks to avoid oncoming trains when needed. As he becomes more and more familiar with his body and his heightened senses he no longer slows at all when trains pass by, he simply tumbles and adapts in stride, his pace remaining constant… and fast.