The Broken Ones (Book 3): The Broken City

by Jobe, David

  Steven’s mouth moved, but no words came out. Terror gripped him the likes of which he had never felt before, not even under the fear of his father’s beatings. He stepped back, feeling the wall stop his retreat. “Error,” he started.

  The beast stepped into the hallway with such agility and speed that Steven felt his bowels release. It jammed one long claw up under his chin, piercing the skin and tongue beyond. The word ‘code’ came out like a gurgling choke. Blood started to fill his throat. He tried to open his mouth and found the claw had pinned his mouth shut. The beast leaned in and gave a demonic chuckle. “No talky, talky man.”

  From within the apartment, he heard a crash. Someone yelled out, “Jessica!” Steven could only assume it was the woman he had come here to kill.

  The beast lifted up its hand, driving the claw into Steven’s jaw even more. He felt the odd sensation of a spike starting to push against the back of his nose. He felt blood flowing out his nostrils, though he was still drowning in his own blood. He struggled, which only made the wound worse, and the point drive up further. He could feel his feet leaving the crappy carpet.

  He grabbed at the wrist of the monster, feeling the scales under his weak hands. He tried to plead, but only managed to spew out a massive amount of blood.

  From the hallway, he heard Sasha shout, “put him down!”

  Hope welled up in Steven. If he could survive this, they still had more healing elixir down in the truck. He would just need Sasha to get him there. He’d have to stop the pussyfooting around and start giving orders, but this was a ‘burn em if ya got em’ scenario.

  The demon thing leaned in so that one large red eye gazed into his. It gave him a wink, and all hope fled from Steven. He felt the second and third spike pierce his jaw, further back, but he didn’t feel them enter his brain. He didn’t feel anything after that. The last thing he ever heard was a gunshot.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Tempting Fate

  The Patton Medical Center sat just north of Indianapolis, between the split of two major interstates. Six buildings in all, it dominated a whole county block, a mile each way. Though most of the outlying area still consisted of untouched farmland and ponds, the central complex gleamed like a white city amidst a peaceful countryside. Jesuit had set up six pristine white tents at the back of one of the buildings, a warehouse from the look of it. Six loading docks flanked the tents, with two dozen armed security officers standing on the loading dock. At each tent, four people sat behind white tables as two medical technicians stood ready with vials and needles.

  The crowd had begun to wander in a few hours early, setting up lines that started out orderly then spread out into chaos and impatience. People of all kinds stood around, leaning from one foot to the other, eager to get their chance at money or normalcy. Families stood huddled together, mothers holding crying or sleeping babies. The sun had started to climb the eastern sky, casting long shadows across the large parking lot. Semi-trailers sat to either side, making the area where the tables were a man-made canyon that could not be accessed from any side but the front.

  Along the south embankment, a group of people had begun to set up, lawn chairs claiming locations as picket signs started to be set against chairs. Beer coolers were soon rolled into several spots, and the people on the hill began to toast to something.

  Chris couldn’t hear the toasts from his hidden location, but he understood the gist of it by their body language. They had come to see a show, and by god, if they had to light the fireworks themselves, they were going to see a show.

  Chris lay on the opposite hill, by where he had stood in the dreams. Though no tree could be found, once he had crested the hill, he knew deep down that this was the spot. This was where he had dreamed of the coming chaos several times. Though he had helped change the course of the future, all roads still found their way here to this moment in time. This powder keg of chaos waited to erupt.

  Silvia sat on a large blanket, a picnic basket resting on one end. She wore a loose yellow sundress and drank from a coffee that had long since grown cold. They had been here since before sunrise, building their perfect spot.

  Chris’s body and even his rifle had been carefully hidden under the blanket, the barrel of it sticking out just beyond the picnic basket. The scope peeked up through a cut in the blanket. The way that Silvia sat, she straddled his back, her dress fanning out to allow him to rise up when the time was right and still be invisible to any onlooker, the yellow dress obscuring him. “How is it looking?”

  He felt Silvia adjust herself on top of him. “It’s starting to pick up, but I still don’t see the boy. This is a bad idea. If we are really going to do this, then we should have done it earlier. It’s foolish to try and stop this right before the moment it happens. What if you miss, and then we all die? We knew where he was for most of the week.”

  Chris rested his face against the butt of the rifle. “Because I’m sure his house is well protected. A kid like that, as famous as he is, I’m sure that he has some serious protection against intruders. And we have no idea what that is. We could have been killed or captured and our knowledge been for nothing. No, this is where we knew he would be, and he would be without whatever hidden security measures he has there.”

  “What makes you think he won’t have any here?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he will. Plus, he will have Lanton with him, and possibly others. But I’m willing to bet that if I strike at the right time, he won’t be ready. Get him just as he tops that rise. Before he thinks to activate anything.” He peered down the scope, willing Machiavelli Patton to show himself.

  “He strikes me as too smart for that.” He heard her take a sip of her coffee, though he swore he could smell a hint of alcohol in it. Not that he could blame her. He was asking her to be an accomplice to murder. To the murder of a man who would soon commit mass genocide.

  “I have faith that I wasn’t shown this for nothing. That my shot will count.” A group of figures mounted the hill opposite the white tents. It didn’t take Chris long to be sure that this was the group his target was in. They all wore matching dark blue jumpers, the front interweaved with what he guessed was a variation of Kevlar. They wore matching patches and walked with the careful steps of a team sizing up a battlefield. Chris sighted down his scope, muttering, “Showtime.”

  Machiavelli stepped from the group, looking out over the sea of heads toward the quiet warehouse. Chris zoomed in, sighting in on the man’s chest. Luck had favored him, as his angle allowed him a clean shot of the man’s ribs just beyond just beyond the protection of the Kevlar. If he hit his mark, the bullet would miss the vest’s protection and strike him through the heart. Chris considered aiming for the head, but his training had advised against it. The head would be a smaller target, and as the boy wasn’t wearing any headgear, it made Chris think he might have something in place to protect it. His only hope was that the boy had too much confidence in the vest and the direction that an attack would come.

  “Taking the shot,” he said. He took a deep breath and let it out. On the release of his breath, he pulled the trigger. The gun gave a muffled bark, the silencer doing its work. Just as the gun bucked against his shoulder, he saw something that made his heart sink. Machiavelli’s infamous girlfriend stepped right into the shot, her head where the bullet was meant to travel.

  For him, it seemed as if time stopped. In the matter of milliseconds it took for the bullet to hit, his mind pieced it all together. The boy screamed that they killed her. Chris hadn’t even stopped to question who she might have been. It had been that catalyst that set the boy on his world ending path. Chris, in his relentless drive to stop the death, had been the instrument to that end. “Oh no,” he breathed out.

  “What?” Silvia moved to have her head by his. “What have you done?”

  “It’s my fault. I..” he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He took a deep breath and pulled the bolt of the rifle to expel the first round and to load a new one. “I ha
ve to finish what I started.” He leaned down again, sighting toward the boy, ready to end the life he had thrown into such despair.

  Through the lens, he could see the young girl standing there unharmed. “I don’t…” His words failed him. He moved the scope’s view left and right but could find no sign of where his bullet might have hit. Or who. It was then that a shadow fell across the scope, blocking his vision. “What?”

  He looked up to see the small knight figurine that the boy had given him. It sat with its head stuck in the viewport of the scope; a white slip of paper wrapped around it liked a blanket. He reached out, grabbed the figure, and pulled it close to his face. Unfurling the paper, he read the nine words that would forever change his life. “First three are blanks. Try shooting the bad guys.”

  “What’s that? What’s happening?” Silvia now leaned over his so far that her hair cascaded around him.

  Chris began to laugh. A deep rumbling laugh escaped him, shaking Silvia as his whole body shook with the effort. He peered down the scope now that the blockage was gone. Standing beside Machiavelli was the stone knight from his dream. This one held none of the cracks from the dream and even appeared to be carrying an actual sword. It looked his direction and gave him a wink. Chris’s laughter intensified. “I’m a great big fool!” He rolled over, looking up at Silvia. “You were right all along. I always talk to the dead I am supposed to save. Only I am an idiot and missed the obvious again. The kid! The kid was the one I was supposed to save. I save him, and he saves us all!”

  She looked down, perplexed. “So, you aren’t going to kill the boy?”

  “I don’t need to.” He smiled up at her. “He won’t end the world now.”

  Silvia leaned down, kissing him long and hard on the forehead. “I’m so thankful. I didn’t think it was right, but I was so worried. What do we do now?”

  Chris looked up her and smiled. “I was thinking that maybe we should go look for Trip. Maybe go home first and rustle up another vision.”

  Silvia blushed but nodded.

  Then the screaming began in the parking lot below.

  Chapter Forty

  Complications

  Eleanor stood in the hallway of her apartment, staring with horror at the scene that unfolded before her. Jessica had been replaced with the monster known to the group now as Flabasham. The thing stood a good six feet, on slender legs that appeared to be covered in black fur. The midsection and torso looked to be little more than black skin over an emaciated skeleton. Spindly arms also covered in black scale ended in hands that looked more like pointed daggers than fingers. Three of those daggers had been shoved up into Steven’s jaw far enough to pierce his brain. The lifeless body of the man dangled a foot above the carpet; his feet twitching in such a manner that Eleanor knew she would have nightmares for months, if not years. “Jessica!”

  A gunshot ran out, and plaster exploded next to the creature’s head.

  Flabasham turned to regard the shooter, six red eyes gleaming with malice. As if discarding a used can of soda, it dropped Steven to the ground with a flick of its wrist.

  The man’s body flopping down and against the wall. Blood poured out in gushing bursts from his mouth, making it look as if he were vomiting blood all over himself. Eleanor tried to tell herself that she wasn’t seeing bits of grey matter in the torrent. Still, Steven’s feet twitched an eerie dance.

  Fear engulfed Eleanor. While she feared what the monster might do to whoever shot at her. She also feared that the shooter might land a killing strike and the poor girl trapped inside that monster would die along with it. “Jessica, please.”

  Flabasham turned, its whole frame now filling the doorway. It stepped inside, clawed feet cutting furrows in the carpet. “Cookie lady.” The sound that escaped its distended jaws sang of madness. The thing had a guttural quality to it that reminded Eleanor of rocks tumbling down an embankment.

  “That’s right. I’m the cookie lady.” She wished she had a handful to offer the monstrosity. “We’re safe now, Jessica. You can turn back.”

  Flabasham shook its head. “Girl gone. Talky man made go.”

  That worried Eleanor. Lanton had been particular about her learning the man’s power. Nothing about it told her if it would last after the man died, and he was without a doubt dead. Behind the monster, he still bled like a hose left on. “Did he say she had to go forever?”

  Flabasham stopped its march toward her. It cocked its sleek head as if considering. “No.” Six eyes narrowed at her.

  “Then let her come back.”

  “Don’t want to.” Another step closer, its bloody claws clicking together in a twitching pattern.

  Eleanor took a step back. “Does she want to?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.” Another step. Its wide mouth drew back into a sinister grin, revealing a row of razor sharp teeth that could rend flesh.

  Eleanor took another step. She worried about herself, the baby, and the poor girl before her that had been turned into a monster by her twisted life. In that instant, she felt her power establish a connection with the creature. Rage and hate flooded her like she had grabbed hold of a live wire. Her whole body tensed as every cell felt as if it were firing at once. The creature held so much rage and hatred that Eleanor feared ever learning what the poor child had been through. Struggling to get her jaw to move she managed to speak. “You. Are. Safe. Now.”

  Flabasham did not appear to care or notice her struggling. It took another step forward. “Only safe, all dead.”

  Elanor shook her head, balling her fists, and trying to push her own will out of her. She worried what this overload of negative emotions might be doing to her unborn child. At the thought of that, she felt her power surge, like all those stories about mom lifting cars off of injured babies. In that powerful influx, she poured her love and compassion into the feeling that exploded out from her. She had joked with Lanton about it being a Care Bear stare, but she knew if she could see it, the light would have blazed across the room.

  Flabasham halted, its eyes blinking. It shook its head as if to clear a thought.

  Eleanor willed another blast, stepping forward. “You are safe, Jessica.” She offered the beast her hand, now close enough that if it swiped with those horrible fingers, she would likely lose her hand and then her life. She felt the wave leave her, the after effects making her dizzy. She dropped to her knees as she did. Her stomach churned, and she vomited up the fries that she had eaten earlier.

  Flabasham took a step back, also dropping to its knobby knees. The darkness appeared to fade from its skin. Though by the time the change was done, Elanor lay on her stomach, Jessica had returned.

  Jessica sprinted across the space to kneel down before Eleanor. “Miss Millie!”

  Eleanor lay with tears running from her eyes. “Something’s wrong, baby girl. Call 911.”

  Jessica shook her head up and down so hard her ponytails struck her in the face several times. “I will.” She stood and turned to run to the phone. She took one step and stopped. “Uh oh.”

  Eleanor turned her head in the direction the little girl was facing. Steven still lay in the hallway, no more blood coming from him. Standing in the doorway, however, was a tall woman with a dragon tattoo on the side of her head.

  In her hands, she held a gun.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I Never Wanted to be a Hero

  He was in a van again.

  Brian chuckled at the memory. He looked at the people in the van with him and started to think on how far he had come to get to this point. He had started out as a normal kid at the bank watching YouTube videos and daydreaming about how cool it would be to be a superhero. Now he sat in the back of a van with a cast of actual superheroes. True, they looked more like the Breakfast Club version, but each had been through hell and back, himself included. Unfortunately for him, they all got to wear spiffy little blue suits fitted with Kevlar inlay. Granted, Brian didn’t need that, or at least he was fairly sure he didn’
t need that. Jesuit had discovered that he was bulletproof, but not knife proof. A sharp enough blade would cut through his extra strong skin like it was normal skin. Still, it would have been nice to have one of the matching outfits. The problem was they hadn’t known he was alive until a few days ago. So, what he got was a blue shirt of the same color that said “Welcome to the gun show” and had arrows pointing at his arms. He had forgone the bluish trousers they found and wore blue jeans instead. He felt like the kid at school that forgot it was spirit day and wasn’t dressed up for the pep rally.

  Miss Lindell sat across from him, sporting the blue suit the rest wore. Not because she had been given one, but her power let her change form at will and allowed her to adopt appropriate clothes at a whim. She had blushed when admitting that she hadn’t actually worn real clothes in close to six months. A thought Brian kept finding himself coming back to. Though she looked nervous, her eyes going from her hands to her shoes and back again, she was there with them, suited up as if they were.