by Hopkin, Ben
“Trying to help you, dude!” Trey yelled back. “Better question… what are you doing here? ‘Cause this does not seem like such a fun place to just hang out.”
“There is a center to this triangle,” Darc responded, turning to stare back into the forest.
“Triangle? What triangle?”
Mala heard Trey’s question, but managed to figure it out before Darc said anything. “The thermite reaction Darc spoke of. It forms a triangle.”
Trey whipped his head back and forth between Mala and Darc. “What…? How…?” He turned to Darc, then seemed to think better of it. He faced off with Mala. “How the eff did you know that?”
“The line of burning thermite was approaching us from an angle. We heard over the radio that there were two more groups that had run into the same thing.” She shrugged. “I took a guess.”
“Dammit all to hell. Fine,” he ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. “Okay, Darc. Where’s the center.”
They rounded a tree and Darc pointed. There, in the middle of a cleared patch of earth, was a pattern of white light, crisscrossing the entire area. The intersecting lines created the image of a huge eye.
But that wasn’t the most important part of the panorama. There, in the center of the circle that depicted the iris, was tied a naked man. He was lit in the garish light emanating from the thermite, and there were darker streaks on his face and torso. Dirt? Blood? It was impossible to tell from here.
Mala gasped, horrified at what she was seeing. There wasn’t a lot of time for her to finish reacting, as Darc sprinted off toward the circle of flame.
Following along behind, Mala felt herself pushed back by the extreme heat of the thermite reaction. How was Darc standing it? It felt like the skin of her face and neck were scalding as she got closer to the line.
Darc hopped over the first row of thermite, the outer portion of the eye. As he did so, he must have triggered some sort of additional reaction, as a new set of white flames flared up in what would have been the white of the eye, forcing Darc toward the center iris, where the naked man had begun moaning in agony from the increase in heat surrounding him.
From what Mala could see, there was almost no way for Darc to get out of the trap in which he was now stuck. His desire to rescue the victim may have led to his own fiery death.
And Mala would be right there, unable to look away while it happened.
CHAPTER 15
The logic pathways converged on the center, where the groaning man had now seen Darc. His cries were no more articulate, but they now seemed directed toward Darc, begging for his assistance.
That assistance was becoming more and more challenging as the moments passed. Not only had Darc’s entry into the outer eye started a new aluminum thermite reaction headed inward, it began another moving in the opposite direction.
Toward Mala and Trey.
These new lines must have been buried beneath the surface of the ground, as Darc had not seen their distinctive mounding as he ran in toward the center. But the shallow burial was nothing that would impede the chemical reaction happening.
The lines spread away from one another as they traveled outward from the iris of the eye. That would allow Trey and Mala to escape if they hurried quickly enough.
“Move back! Find the points of the triangle. There will be other individuals trapped there,” he called out to the pair. The lines of thermite sped toward them. Mala’s expression was strange… it appeared set, as if it were carved in stone, and for a moment, Darc feared she would stay and be immolated. But moments later, she turned and sped after an already running Trey.
Darc turned his attention back toward the figure on the ground.
“Do not move. Do not speak.” There was no way to know what other triggers were here. The thermite reaction forced him closer and closer to the inner circle of the iris, where the man’s body was tied down to stakes. His arms and legs, like the others, were spread out, but there was no pentagram inscribed inside.
Yet.
That was the final trap.
Allowing the green lines of light in his mind to trace his path, Darc ran and leapt up and into the center of the circle, flattening out his body just before he landed.
Right on top of the man’s torso.
Darc did what he could to spread out his body weight to keep the damage to a minimum, but still felt a snap beneath him as several of the man’s ribs broke. The figure’s breath whooshed out of his chest, followed by an intense moan. Judging from the man’s contorted face and what had just occurred, Darc surmised the man was in pain.
“Remain still while I release you.” Darc worked to free the man from the stakes driven into the ground. The cords around his wrists had been tied tight and were cutting off the circulation to the victim’s extremities. The flesh around the ropes had swollen, making it difficult for Darc to gain a purchase with his fingers. In addition, the man beneath him had begun to writhe, which caused his arms and legs to quiver. Darc would grab a knot and begin working on it, only to have it snatched out of his grip.
“That is not still,” he stated through teeth gritted with strain. Finally, Darc managed to release one of the arms. The man immediately swung his freed limb around, flailing in his pain.
His movements must have triggered the final trap. The lines of the pentagram began to be traced in the dirt by incandescent rays moving into the center of the circle.
The logic lines warped, readjusting the timetable. It was impossible to free the man before the flame reached him.
Darc had failed.
Several options snaked their way through his consciousness. He snatched hold of one of them, grabbing the man by his shoulders and shaking him to gain his attention.
“Who was your attacker?” Darc demanded.
The man groaned and looked back at the approaching flame.
Darc shook him harder. “Do you know who it was?”
The man opened his mouth as if to answer, displaying a gaping hole filled with blood. The man’s tongue had been ripped out. He could not answer.
The human life beneath Darc was soon to be snuffed out. Darc had not saved him, nor had he been successful in gaining additional information.
Not only that, but Darc’s own life was now in serious danger.
A rapid analysis of the lines of logic gave him one option. That option gave him an 83.2% chance of survival, but required him to leave this man to die an agonizing death. The choice was clear. Darc had to abandon this man.
And yet, a bright white ray of brilliance shown in Darc’s mind, surpassing the radiance of the thermite reaction around him. He would not leave, but would do what he could to release the victim before the flame reached them both.
Darc did so, releasing the man’s other hand and one of his ankles right before the flame reached the body. The trap was now complete, and there was no feasible way out of scenario that Darc could ascertain.
That continued to be the case until the helicopter that flew into place above him threw out a rope that hit Darc square in the face. It hurt, but not as badly as what was coming for them both. The pathways of color adjusted, showing Darc the new plan.
He looped the rope around and under the man’s armpits, tying it off with a bowline knot. Turning to face the helicopter above, he raised his thumb to indicate that they should be lifted up.
The bright threads calculated the weight capacity of the rope, as well as the approximate weight of the victim. The answer came, a symbol that displayed its uncertainty even as it proclaimed probable success. The rescue would be a near thing, especially considering the man’s ankle was still attached.
The chopper rose in the air, with Darc resting his feet on the man’s shoulders and holding onto the line above him. It would not be pleasant for the victim, but that would be nothing compared to what was about to happen to his ankle.
The line pulled taut, stretching the man out to his full length. There was a pop of the man’s ankle bones separa
ting right before the stake was ripped out of the ground by the lift from the helicopter.
And then they were free, soaring up toward the sky, looking down at the tops of the trees. The thermite reaction spread out around Darc, forming the expected triangle, with the eye in the middle and lines radiating outward in a hellish version of glory.
At each of the points of the circle burned another pentagram. Whether those other three circles still contained their bodies, Darc could not ascertain from this position.
A voice called out from above him. Trey.
“I saved you, man,” he yelled over the noise of the chopper. “You’re welcome.”
Darc puzzled over that statement for a moment. It seemed that Trey expected some sort of thank you from him. He would need to say something to his partner in response to the rescue Trey had apparently mustered.
If they were headed to the hospital, Darc would be relieved.
It would take him that long to figure out what to say.
* * *
Janey sat and stared at Pyper, her babysitter.
Her babysitter was on the couch in the living room, reading a book. But she hadn’t turned any pages in a long time, and the lines of color in Janey’s head told her that her babysitter wasn’t really reading right now.
Janey was facing her across the coffee table, where she had been drawing pictures for the last few minutes. It seemed to be helping calm Pyper down, at least a little bit.
Pyper had spent the last three hours doing everything she could to stay right next to Janey. When Janey went to her room, Pyper was right there with a card game. If she went to the bathroom, Pyper would ask her every two seconds if she was doing okay in there and was there anything Pyper could get her? Even though she knew that Janey didn’t talk.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but Janey didn’t talk much out loud. The only thing she’d said in her outside voice since her mommy and daddy had died was Darc’s name. And that was months ago, and only because the mean social services people were taking her away from him.
And now Darc was somewhere out there with Mala and probably Trey, finding killers and protecting people like her. And all Janey wanted to be doing was helping.
It was so frustrating being little. No one took you seriously.
That wasn’t true either, though. Darc took her seriously. More than Mala or Trey or Maggie did. And Mala and Trey and Maggie took her much more seriously than any other people Janey had ever met in her life.
Popeye snorted at her and said that no one could take a girl seriously that still liked My Little Pony and wore pigtails. Showed what he knew. Janey didn’t care about My Little Pony any more. Now it was Lalaloopsy dolls. Silly bear. And she couldn’t help it that Mala liked her in pigtails.
Come to think of it, Pyper was also taking Janey pretty seriously right now. She was so afraid that Janey was going to disappear again that she wouldn’t let Janey out of her sight. So in a way that meant that her babysitter was treating her like a grownup.
It maybe shouldn’t have, but that made Janey feel good. She bent her head down and kept drawing her picture, one that she’d been working on all evening.
It was a picture of Mala and Trey and Janey and Maggie all inside the funny star-in-a-circle thing that Darc had been talking about. What was it called? A pentagram.
The colored lines swirled up from the drawing, showing her what it all meant. It wasn’t a good symbol. At least not the way the bad person was using it.
But Janey had a fix for it. She put a gold detective badge around them all. It was inside the star, but held everyone else inside of it.
Popeye said it was a dumb drawing, but she just ignored him. Sometimes the things he said weren’t worth the breath they took to answer them. That was something Mommy sometimes said when Janey would ask too many questions.
Caitlyn. She’d been Caitlyn then.
Janey let out a sigh, and Pyper put her book down. “What’s the matter? Did you finish another one?”
She moved around the table and stopped when she was right behind Janey. Looking down at the drawing, Pyper made a little coughing noise.
“Oh, that’s… nice. That’s a great picture, Janey.” She pulled out her bag. “How about if we pop some popcorn and maybe watch some Spongebob?”
The popcorn sounded good. Janey really liked popcorn, especially with lots of butter. And Patrick Starfish and Squidward were really funny, even if Spongebob Squarepants was a little annoying sometimes.
She nodded up at Pyper, who tried to give her a smile back, but her lips went all funny and it just looked weird. Popeye said the babysitter hated Janey’s picture and was trying not to tell her, but Janey told him to hush his mouth or he wouldn’t get any popcorn. That shut him up.
Well, mostly. Usually when Popeye really didn’t say anything for too long, it meant there was something wrong.
But this time, it was just about the popcorn.
* * *
So, this time Trey had done something and pretty much everyone had noticed. He’d called in the firefighters, and had told them to bring a helicopter. Which had ended up saving the victim in the middle circle, as well as Darc, Mala and almost everyone else.
It was pretty awesome.
Or at least it had been, until they had gotten to the hospital. They were in the intensive care unit, the look and feel of every room and hallway stark and sterile. Three cops and the victim in the center of the eye had made it out alive, but with massive burns. Nurses were working unceasingly to make sure they stayed alive.
Trey gazed around the waiting room and spotted Darc’s face. His partner was not happy, and Trey was pretty sure he knew why.
And that part was also something he had done. Was there never going to be a time where Trey could just feel good about something he’d done well, without the burden of crushing guilt to go along with it as a side?
“Darc, I’m sorry,” Trey said, walking over to the bald detective. He wanted to put a hand on his partner’s shoulder or something, but he knew that Darc wouldn’t appreciate it. Or tolerate it, for that matter.
“You have nothing for which you need to apologize.”
“Come on, man. You know that I was the one that pushed for backup. We wouldn’t have lost those cops if—” Trey began.
“I was the one who capitulated. I feared it would be a repeat of the slaughterhouse and the Underground. This was worse.”
That got Trey’s attention. “Worse? How was this worse? We didn’t lose nearly as many cops this time.”
Darc didn’t say anything, just got up and moved toward one of the rooms. There, on a bed, was a woman. There was no way to recognize her, due to the extensive burning all over her face and torso, but he was pretty sure she was one of the uniforms that had been there.
The sight of her took away any remaining part of Trey’s exuberance from Darc’s rescue tonight. He wanted to turn away, to brush it off, to joke about it. Make it less significant or painful somehow. But he couldn’t.
Not this time.
“Darc, I…” Trey heard his own voice trail off. There really wasn’t anything he could say.
And then there was a flurry of activity around the nurses’ station. An incessant beeping was heard at the desk, and Trey moved toward the area, hoping to figure out what was going on. He heard snippets of conversation as the team buzzed around, heading for the room where the one victim Darc had saved was being kept.
“Burn victim…”
“… coding…”
“Grab a crash cart!”
This was not good.
Trey rushed after them, waving at Darc and Mala to get their attention. He skittered along behind the grouping of medical professionals, hoping to escape notice.
It seemed to work right up to the point they got to the room. Not only did one of the orderlies stop him from going in, but one of the large guy’s buddies was expelling someone else from the room.
It was Carson Speer. The APA.
CHAPTER 16
One second, Mala was running after Trey in the halls of the ICU, trying to figure out what was going on. The next, she had joined in with Darc to physically restrain the shorter detective as he tried to rip out Carson Speer’s throat.
“How much proof do you need?” Trey was screaming. “He was in the room with our one link to the killer, and now the guy’s dead.”
“We don’t know that he’s dead yet,” Mala said, doing what she could to calm him down. It wouldn’t do to have one of the lead detectives on the case thrown into prison for assaulting one of the city’s prosecuting attorneys.
“Actually, we do,” put in Carson, his tone apologetic. “The man died while I was in there.”
“See? See??” Trey yelled, groping for the lawyer with an additional burst of energy. It was taking all of Mala and Darc’s strength as well as skill to keep him in check. This was getting out of control fast.
“I didn’t do anything,” Carson responded, dancing back out of the way of Trey’s grasping hands. “Really, I didn’t. I was just here to try to--”
“Kill the one witness we had to cover your tracks?” Trey finished for him. He turned to Mala and Darc. “It’s okay. I’m under control now.”
Mala could feel his body relax under her hands, so she nodded to Darc to let go. Immediately Trey sprang at the APA once more. Luckily, Darc was able to jump in front of his partner and keep him from inflicting bodily damage.
“This behavior is irrational, Trey,” Darc intoned. Mala sighed in relief. At least there was some kind of sanity coming from the tall detective. Her relief vanished with his next words. “If you were to harm him here, there would be too many witnesses.”
“What?” squeaked Carson. “You want him to attack me somewhere else? I’m the APA!”
Darc turned to the lawyer, pinning him with that intense I-will-peer-into-your-soul look that he had perfected. “You being the APA has nothing to do with whether or not you deserve punishment.”
“But… but… You said that--”
“I said that you being the next APA had no relation to your guilt,” he clarified.