“Sorry for the interruption, son,” I said to Blake, grabbing the hammer. “Now, where were we?”
Chapter 27
Head of the Class
After about an hour of doing to Blake what I do best, I got as much information from him as I would ever get.
Poe had a farmhouse on the other side of Chicago, past the city and well into the country. That’s all he knew about the location. Since he teleported there and never drove, he couldn’t exactly give me street directions.
He was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know anything about the survivor in the basement, Maya.
Too bad.
I spent a good ten minutes on that one.
When it came down to it, Blake couldn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. Poe was trafficking people. While he had instructions on the type of people he needed and by when, the selection was too varied to see any pattern. Poe told him to capture an athletic black man under fifty. An overweight white forty-year-old woman. A Hispanic female of twenty.
A ten-year-old boy.
They sounded random, but Poe didn’t seem like a random kind of monster. I still didn’t know what he was up to. Or who he was trafficking for.
Blake sat in the cage, bleeding from the remaining twelve cuts on his body. As the blood reversed back into the remaining wounds, his cockiness disappeared. His smugness was gone. All that remained was the boy he could have been.
If he was human.
He wheezed as his lungs regenerated. “You can’t beat him.”
“Famous last words,” I said, wiping off the blood from the chef’s knife.
“You don’t know Poe, man. He’s been around for a while. Since the civil war. Hell, he even told me he was a cowboy once. He’s old. He knows how you hunters work. He’s got a plan. He’s smart, man. Way smarter than me. Smarter than you.”
I grinned widely. “I doubt it.”
He chuckled.
I wiped the blood off the machete. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about what Poe is going to do to you. It amuses me.”
There was a knock at the door. I opened it. Augie walked in, calm and composed.
He always seemed to interrupt when Blake had something interesting to say. Like a cockblocker of important information. I snapped at him. “Why are you here?”
“You said to come back when I calmed down. I’m calm.”
“That was hypothetical.”
“Well, here I am. I want to try this again.”
Blake sighed and asked, “What are you gonna do with me?”
I put the knife on the table. “I’m going to cut off your head and melt it in a barrel of acid.”
I took the machete.
“My friends will save me,” he said.
“Your friends,” I said, lowering the machete, “are a bunch of severed heads in a freezer.”
“They ain’t dead, man. They’re just sleeping. Hibernating. Waiting.”
Augie swallowed. “You’re creeping me out.”
Blake leaned against the inside of the cage, even though it was shocking him. “There’s no such thing as death, not for us. There is only the in-between.”
“Don’t listen to him, August. He’s trying to scare you.”
Augie looked at me, fear in his eyes. “It’s working.”
“August, every moment is a training moment,” I said. “You’re letting him control you again. Not with anger this time, but with fear. Leave the room, please.”
He huffed and stomped out of the room.
Blake started laughing again. “Man, what a lightweight.”
“That kid has more heart than you’ll ever know.”
“I’ll know his heart real good when Poe rips it out.” He was still chuckling. “Man, your trainee is a moron. Poe has you all wrapped around his little pinky finger.” He wiggled his pinky finger.
“You think so?” I moved toward the cage with the machete in hand.
“I know so. I mean, Augie sure can fight with that blade, but you guys never even check your pockets.”
I glared at him. “I don’t know how you got that tracker in my pocket,” I said, “but it was a lucky gamble.”
“It’s not luck, man. It’s Poe. He’s ten steps ahead of you.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yeah, man. I guess you found that first tracker, huh?”
“Of course.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to the second?” My face got hot. I frantically checked my coat pockets. Empty. Checked my jean pockets. Empty. “It wasn’t pleasant to remove, by the way. But man, your boy was so busy slicing and dicing in that house, he never noticed me slip it in his back pocket.” My heart dropped into my stomach. Blake was cackling. “You’ve been schooled, son.”
I shot from the room and raced down the hall.
Augie was sitting in one of Zac’s computer chairs. Without explaining, I bent him over and reached into his back pockets. In his left back pocket, I pulled out a tiny object covered in blood. The second tracker.
The one that was inside Blake.
“We have to go,” I said. “Now.”
Zac stood up so fast, his legs slammed the chair against the desk. “What’s going on?”
“They found us,” I said. I dropped the tracker to the floor and crushed it under my boot.
Augie saw it. “Oh, shit.”
“Somehow, they hacked my signal,” I said. “They’re using my own tracker against us. Zac, take Serena. Landon, you’re with me.”
Zac and Serena scurried down the hall. Zac opened a secret passage door and they disappeared. I rushed back to the room, grabbed my Glock, and fired thirteen rounds into Blake. If they find him, he won’t be much use.
I sped toward the freight elevator. I held it open for Augie and Landon.
“You better protect me, Ivy,” Landon said. “I’m the only one who can get you to the portal.”
“Don’t remind me.” I slammed the elevator door. “Now go.”
We made it to my Chevy and barreled onto the road. In less than a mile, they rolled behind us in a black SUV.
“They found us,” Augie said.
“They won’t catch us,” I said, gunning it down the road like a bat out of hell.
Landon was in the back of the truck. Augie was in front with me.
I handed Augie my Beretta. “Don’t shoot my head off by accident.”
I pealed onto the expressway. Poe was in pursuit. If I was in any other vehicle other than a truck with a camper, I could outrun them. But this was one time this vehicle was at a serious disadvantage. Poe rammed into us as we merged over from the ramp. Quinn sat in the passenger seat. He smiled and raised an Uzi. The bullets sprayed along my camper and door.
“Shit,” I said, yanking the wheel hard to the left.
How could I dodge them? They had a faster vehicle. And an Uzi.
I hated it when they used guns.
I had no idea how to get out of this alive.
I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news but…
Unless I pulled a miracle out of my ass, we were all going to die.
Chapter 28
The Chase
I weaved in and out of traffic as the bullets clipped the rear of the camper. Downtown Chicago was on the horizon. I was still too far out to hit heavy traffic. I pulled off on the first exit and headed down a side road. Poe didn’t skip a beat. Riding my ass for the past half mile, I slammed on my brakes. They rear-ended. He lost control of the wheel and swerved, but quickly regained his wits.
With my left hand on the wheel, I fired the Glock with my right. The bullets sprayed across their windshield.
I missed Poe.
Quinn raised the Uzi. The spread of bullets shot through my door and nailed the inside of my windshield and dash.
Augie dived to the floor. “Holy shit!”
“What’re you doing down there?” I asked. “The bad guys are out here.”
> “They’re shooting at us!”
“You have a gun.”
“I’m better with a knife,” he said.
“You can channel it the same as the knife.”
“It’s not working!”
Landon shouted from the back. “Getting shot wasn’t on today’s to-do list, Solomon.”
“Stay down,” I shouted.
Quinn raised the Uzi again. I rammed their side, sending Poe into the grass. As we hit suburbia, he made it back to the road, leveling several mailboxes that flew over the hood of his SUV.
Augie raised his head. “I thought you said they didn’t drive?”
“Shut up.”
“And you said they didn’t use guns.”
“SHUT UP.”
Poe was a different cat. He played by different rules. Didn’t follow the trends of normal Forevers. I couldn’t throw him in the same category as the others. His patterns were different. His style was unique.
The thing I admired about him was the thing I hated.
I fired at Quinn, nailing his shoulder and neck. He didn’t flinch.
From the back of the truck, Landon shouted, “I still have six months, Ivy. Remember that.”
“Shut up, please.”
I was coming up on a minivan way too fast. A soccer mom and four kids.
Shit.
I swerved hard right, into a yard, smashing through a wooden fence before sliding back on the road in front of soccer mom.
Poe was in front of me. Quinn leaned out the window. And fired.
I ducked. Seven bullets tore past me, missing me by centimeters. The last one grazed my shoulder.
Poe slammed the breaks. The Uzi did another pass as I ripped by them, nailing the side of the truck and camper.
I floored it.
Augie peered through the back window. “Uh oh.”
“‘Uh oh’ what?”
“Professor Landon’s not moving,” he said. “I think he got hit.”
“Go back there and find out.”
“How? We’re going ninety miles per hour.”
“You’re skinny,” I said. “Cram through the window.”
Safely out of Poe’s line of fire and several vehicles between us, Augie squeezed himself through the window.
He got his body through but his feet flailed and kicked me in the face.
“Watch it,” I said, knocking his feet away. I veered past a garbage truck before finding the lane again. “How is he?”
“He’s bleeding bad.”
“Alive?”
“Barely.”
I heard him shuffle through drawers and tool chests. That bothered me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking for something that will help,” he said. I glanced at him in the rearview. He pulled out a vial of Forever Blood, uncapped it, and took the syringe in his hand. “Found it.”
“August, don’t.” I was too late.
He shoved the syringe into Landon’s heart. Landon practically jumped out of his skin.
Alive.
Augie smiled. “It worked.”
“What the hell just happened to me?” Landon said. “And why do I feel so goddamn amazing?”
I yelled to the back. “August, protect yourself.”
“What’re you talking about?” he asked. Landon fell to the back of the truck. His body convulsed. “Professor Landon?”
Landon’s eyes went black. Dark veins protruded from his skin and spread through his body until he was covered with them.
Augie backed away, moving closer to the front of the truck. “Holy shit.”
Black boils formed over Landon’s body, growing to the size of softballs.
He exploded.
Black blood and guts splashed everywhere. A black chunk of liver splattered on the windshield and dribbled down the glass.
“Oh, man,” August said. “Gross. There’s pieces of him everywhere.”
“August, get your ass up here. Now.”
The better part of Landon’s torso was separated from his limbs. His head and ribcage was filled with black goo.
It bubbled.
There was a slurping sound.
Augie sounded hopeful. “H-He’s still moving,” he said. “I-I think he’s still alive.”
But Harold Landon was definitely not alive.
In the black slop that was Harry Landon’s body, something emerged. An appendage slithered from the corpse. A large insect leg poked out of the blackness.
Several more legs.
Crawling from the black blood and bile came a creature with a thousand legs.
Augie screamed. “Oh, my God. What the hell is that?”
I saw it in the rearview mirror as it scampered up the wall. An oily, black centipede-like creature. Its legs were squirming. Its pinchers pinching.
And its sights were set on August McKenzie.
Chapter 29
The Big Bad
The black creature scurried up the wall to the ceiling. It hung upside down, an abomination of Mother Nature. The size of a German Shepherd, it had dozens of legs on each side, like a centipede, but its body was shaped like an earwig, its tail extended downward with pinchers snapping in the air.
I could tell from his blood-curdling death screams, Augie was not taking it well.
He screamed several times before stopping. “Ivy, help!” He was panicking. “What the fuck is that? What is that thing?”
“It’s a thoughtform.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Don’t you know? I thought you were a fan of my books.”
“I was. When it was cool stories. Before I knew you were a monster hunter and this shit was real.”
“Monster killer.”
“Book seven,” he said mid-scream. “Chapter twelve. Thoughtforms are entities made from congealed thoughts and emotions.”
“Good memory. That creature is your nightmare made flesh. Kinda makes you wish you dreamed about Beyonce now, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t see how this is funny,” he yelled, ducking under its pinchers. “How do I kill it?”
“You have a knife.”
“I am not getting close to that thing,” he said, diving against the side of the truck. “It has snappers!”
“Stab it.”
“Fuck you.” His arm squeezed through the window. He was trying to get back in the front. To his credit, he got his head and one arm through before the beast wrenched him to the back.
Poe’s SUV appeared in my rearview. The other lane was clear and he was gaining.
I glanced at the mirror. Augie was on the floor. The creature scurried across the ceiling. I switched to the opposing lane to pass a yellow school bus.
I spun around and quickly pumped several rounds into the beast until I emptied out. The Landon-beast slid to the back wall but didn’t fall.
As I passed the bus, the windows were full of children with wide eyes, watching me. Not in fear but fascination. What was the world coming to when school children weren’t afraid of gunshots?
Directly behind us, Quinn leaned out the SUV with the Uzi.
“August, get down!”
Augie dropped to the floor. Bullets showered the rear of the truck, punching several holes through the beast.
Black blood sprayed inside the camper. I reached in the dashboard and grabbed a clip while veering in front of the bus. Poe was gaining speed.
I couldn’t deal with both Poe and the beast while driving. “August, you need to kill it.”
“I’m trying to survive back here!”
“Stop being a pussy and cut off its damn head. Use the demon blade, goddammit.”
There wasn’t much room in the back to fight. His options were limited. And I didn’t know if channeling the knife would allow for improvisation.
Augie screamed a war cry as he stabbed the Landon-beast to death. Black blood spit everywhere.
Poe pulled up beside me at seventy miles per hour As Quinn reloaded, Poe w
aved at me. Smiled. And winked.
That fucker.
I smashed into their front wheel, sending them off the road and into a field. The ravine between us was too deep for them to cross back onto pavement.
I spun the wheel to the right, doing a 180 to the next road. Poe continued down the field, heading away from us.
A half mile down the road was a bridge over a lake. The road on the other side would lead back to Chicago.
We were home free.
Heading toward the bridge, I gunned it. I couldn’t get there fast enough. Poe could turn around and retrace the road back to us. I had to make it over the bridge before that happened.
I glanced in the rearview. August screamed bloody murder as he furiously stabbed the Landon-beast into paste.
I was almost to the bridge. I floored it. I was glad I put on new tires after the fire. The new tread gripped like a boss.
With that thought, an eighteen-wheeler came over the bridge as my back tire exploded.
My rear end skidded off the ravine, but the front traction of the Chevy gripped the pavement and pulled us back on just in time for the bridge. But the back end slid too far left, clipping the semitruck as it passed.
I spun out of control on the bridge. The wheel pulled left. We ploughed through the barrier and hurtled over the edge.
Airborne.
Plunging to the lake below.
Chapter 30
Big Fish
It felt like a a bomb blew in the Chevy’s engine as we crashed to the lake. The tidal wave blasted against the cracked windshield. Water rushed in the driver’s side window. I took a deep breath and unbuckled. We were dropping fast. The truck filled even faster.
We landed to the bottom of the lake on all four wheels. I tried opening my door. It was stuck. I swam out the window. Augie was trapped in the back. With the water pressure against the back door, he might not be able to open it.
I swam to the back and shook the door handle. Jammed. I heard Augie bang the door from the inside. Multiple hits. He was kicking the door. Panicking, losing control. The best mindspace to have in any situation is calm.
And Augie was losing his shit.
There was no time to get him to the surface. Hopefully, the kid was smart enough to not take in the water. I pulled out my hunting knife and rammed it into the edge of the door. With my weight behind it, I snapped the door open.
Memoirs of a Monster Killer: Killing Forever Book 1 Page 16