(The Push Chronicles (Book 2): Indefatigable (15 page)

"The leader has spoken and none too soon," Rachel said.  "While you all were 'discussing', I pulled the financial records on Skyway Apartments.  Several of the recent tenants have suspected affiliations with the Humans for God and other racist groups."

"Look, I'm sorry for the past," I said, rising from my chair.  "And I'll make it up to you, somehow.  Just believe me when I say that Ian's not just thinking of taking over a building or killing some people.  He's going to take over this city and he just might manage to do a lot more than that."  I looked from friend to friend.  "So pax.  Let's go to it, right?"

"Indeed," Eye nodded.  "There is a day to be saved, after all."

"I'm putting a call through to PART," Duane added.  "Rachel and I will meet you guys on-site.  Dollars to doughnuts, that whole complex is Vamp central, so grab whatever you might need from the lockers and we'll throw a plan together when we meet up."

"Suit up, people," Ex commanded.  "I want us out of here in ten."

I knew I would have to answer for everything I had hidden from them later, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I was happy to have something else to worry about, even if it was the potential of being wiped out by a vampire army ... or something far worse.  I still mulled over Mackenzie's last clue in the back of my mind.  I had a bad feeling that I would find out exactly what he was referring to all too soon.

Chapter 16 Room

The cyclical nature of events wasn't lost on me as I stared at the decrepit twin towers of the Skyway apartments.  If anything, it was even more sad and forlorn than it had been three months ago when I had first stood on that spot.  At least this time I wasn't alone.

"Every window is either curtained or boarded over," Duane said, looking over the buildings with binoculars.  Rachel tightened the straps on her bulletproof vest and glanced at the sky.

"We only have an hour maximum of daylight left," she noted.  She pulled out her pistol and gave it a quick once-over.  "As much as I would prefer to wait for PART's SWAT team to help kick in doors, we can't wait."  Extinguisher nodded to her as I tapped on Mind's Eye's shoulder.  The Indian psychic was hovering cross-legged in the air, probing the structure with her mental powers.  The vampires weren't susceptible to her telepathy, but it didn't hurt to check.

"Anything?" I asked.

"To my surprise, Indomitable, yes."  She turned her blind gaze towards me, as best as she could.  "There are some living minds still in the buildings."  She mulled over her words for a moment, then added: "Their minds are very anxious and alert.  To pry too deep could bring me to their attention, but from their surface thoughts, they are anticipating something."

"I'd hate to put it like this, but that's smart thinkin' there," Hexagon said, sliding stakes into two crossed bandoliers.  "Mackenzie knows that we ain't gonna go in there hog-wild, pardon the pun, if there's living people we might hurt.  Just puttin' a few live Hogs in there slows us down."

"Lady Eye, might it be possible for you to pinpoint those minds?" Archer asked.

"Surgical snatch?" Ex said to Archer as the seer concentrated her power once more.

"Indeed.  If we apply our swiftest knights -"

"- we get the living clear so we can open up full power on the rest of the vamps.  Great idea."

As much as I would usually be in on the planning phase, I couldn't help but be focused on the buildings themselves.  A thousand scenarios played out in my head as I wondered what I could have done different that night.  Could I have changed everything if I had just done things a  little differently?  It was a foolish thing to waste time on.  You couldn't change the past.

"Irene," Medusa hiss-whispered.  She had came up right next to me and I hadn't even noticed.  "Why didn't you?"

"Didn't what?" I asked, confused.

"He didn't jussst assk you to join hiss sside, did he?"

"No."

"He thinksss he can change it all back and he assked you to help him.  Becausse you were here.  You know ssssomething more."

"Yes."

"Ssso why didn't you?"  This time, there was a pleading in her voice.

"It's not that easy, Meds.  Even if he did recreate the experiment, well, you see how things are around us now?  Who knows what his mind would create to replace it, no matter his intentions?  I don't even know if it's right anymore to try to fix it."  I was sure that my reply would make the snake-woman turn away, but instead she put a hand on my shoulder.

"I hope you do find a right way to fix thingsss sssomeday, but I underssstand why you didn't today,"  she said softly.  "With that being sssaid, let'sss go ssave the city, huh?"

"Beautiful idea."  I cracked a smile and glanced at Extinguisher and Rachel, who had apparently finished confabulating.  "Do we have a plan?"

"We have a plan."

It began with a bang, not a whimper.  More precisely, the simultaneous shattering of every exterior window, boarded or not, outward as Mind's Eye focused her telekinetic might.  The sky glittered with the rain of glass tumbling down the sides of Skyway.  With most of the building now exposed to the setting sun, it was time for the next step of the plan.

They began their run the moment the windows broke.  Extinguisher and the Argent Archer descended from the clouds, one trailing ice and the other trailing fire as they each cut an arc in the sky aiming directly for one of the two apartment buildings.  The Human Tank roared out from our impromptu meeting area in the parking lot, tearing up grass and pavement alike with his treads.  I couldn't hear it with my closed mind, but I could definitely imagine Mind's Eye directing them mentally to their targets: the living shields Mackenzie had left in place.

"Two here, jumpy with guns."

"'T would seem the windows breaking spooked the villains."

"Got one, got another, go go go!"

The chatter sounded good, but there was something nagging me about it.  Opening up all the windows certainly lit up a good part of the building, but there were still plenty of interior spaces, as well as the side of the building opposite of the setting sun, that had to be protected enough.  Where were the vamps?  They would protect their brothers-in-arms, wouldn't they?

"Let's go, folks," I called out.  "Something's not right and I don't want to leave those three on their own."

"Indy," Ex said over the com, "we're running into no problems here.  Are you sure?"

"Think about what you just said."

"Lady's got a point," Duane noted as he and Rachel followed me towards the apartments.  "Even normal human Hogs put up more of a fight."

"Affirmative," the firefighter replied.  As if that were the definitive signal, Medusa and Hexagon swept into formation behind me as we moved towards our respective targets.  Mind lingered back to coordinate and keep the rescued Hogs under telekinetic lockdown.  As we neared the split between the two buildings, I veered towards the first.  The two agents fell in with me as the two Push Heroes gave a silent nod as they moved in on building two.

As competent as Brooks and Choi were, I couldn't help but feel a little worried having them here on the front lines.  They were even more fragile than I was compared to our Pushed friends but, at the same time, I couldn't discount their ability.  I'd just have to keep an eye out for them.

The two detectives moved to either side of the double doors as I opened them with a straight kick.  There was no call for subtlety now; speed was of the essence.  A floor-by-floor, room-by-room clearing of all of Mackenzie's vampire army, that was the plan.  The faster we executed it, the less likely we would be bogged down by the undead.  Still, regardless of the plan, I wanted to get to room 1127.  Eric's old room, the place where this all started.  The steel and glass doors obligingly swung inward, sending even more shafts of sunlight down the dusty corridor.  No immediate resistance.

Rachel pointed left and I motioned right.  As Duane broke the lock out of one door, I kicked down the opposite and barged in.  Scattered rays of sunlight filtered through the shattered window of the front room as dust motes lazily played, ignorant of the drama in the air around them.  For a building that was ostensibly still in use, the room was caked with far too much dust.  Only a few scattered prints gave any awareness of activity, living or undead.

Passing through the tiny room in a few bounding steps, I put my shoulder to the bedroom door, knocking it easily aside.  Finally, something more than dirt and urban decay, but strangely disturbing in it's own way.  It was a vampire, true enough, dressed in paramilitary fatigues and she was praying.  Unusual, perhaps, but the Hogs were generally religious.  The disturbing part was the way her hands were smoking, burning from the Bible she held open in front of her.  This wasn't a creature ready to fight.

Not that it stopped her.  The corpse snarled with rage the moment she heard me and lunged.  My moment's hesitation gave the monster all the opening she needed to grab me and drive me into the nearest wall, crumbling the cheap drywall.  I didn't even feel it.  What I did feel was fantastic.  I couldn't remember the last time I felt so strong, so fast.  The enforced rest and recovery at Mackenzie's hands had been a godsend in disguise.

As the creature moved to bite, I freed one of my arms and grabbed her by the throat, ignoring the nausea-inducing squish of my fingers on dead flesh.  The creature roared in surprise as I snapped her neck and let go, staggering back as the horrible damage began to repair itself.  Before it could have that chance, I pulled the crucifix out from my jacket, pinning her down to the ground under it's glare.

"Where is Mackenzie?" I barked, kneeling over the vampire, my other hand on a stake.

"I'll never talk," the beast replied in that same rapid, high-pitched patter as the others.  "I'm ready to go to God now."  The trouble with fanatics is that they really are ready to die.  I wouldn't get anything out of this one.

I slammed the stake down into the monster's heart.  Ian was going to pay for everything he did to these people.  The Hogs at this point were as much victims as anyone else.  Just another tool one man created to further his goals and that he was just as likely to cast away when he didn't need it.

I ran out the room.  My sense of foreboding was only growing and I had a feeling in the pit of my gut that the answer to that foreboding would be in room 1127.  It would have to wait; this wasn't the time to go maverick.  I had people who were depending on me to follow the plan.  Like Brooks and Choi, who had, by the sudden call into my earpiece, just found a vampire themselves.  I crossed the hall in a couple of swift steps to the apartment the pair had invaded.

As I stepped through, Duane slammed into the wall right next to the door frame, thumping his head hard before sliding to the floor.  His attacker was roaring in agony as holy water melted undead flesh like acid as it rolled down his face, causing the monster to drop Rachel from his death grip.  I could still make out the glass shards from the shattered vial as I stepped forward to grab the vampire.  Surprisingly aware for how much pain it had to be in, the creature evaporated into mist before I could get a secure hold.  In the dim light of the room, the mist was clearly visible, but who knew when or where it would reform?  Rachel staggered to her feet, gasping for air.

"Duane?"

"Alive, I'm pretty sure," I stepped back-to-back with her.  "Get ready."  The air trembled and dust swirled; it had to be coming back together.

The corpse did so in mid-lunge, it's half-melted jaws seeking out blood.  I caught it in mid-air and turned on a heel, heaving it against the wall opposite of Duane.  Before the creature could rise, Rachel yanked something from around her neck and held it out confidently.  The monster shrunk away from the necklace.  It wasn't a cross, but a round symbol of some kind, like a wagon wheel with eight spokes.  Whatever it was, it's power over the vampire was no less than my crucifix and it almost glowed in the dim light.

"This is harder than it looks," Rachel grunted.  "But it looks like all you need is faith."

"What-"

"Buddhist," she interrupted my question to answer.  "Now someone kill this thing for good?"

"I got this one," Duane said as he staggered past me.  I hadn't even noticed he had gotten up, though I was happy to see him up and around.  He slid out a stake and, with Rachel pinning the creature down, Duane slammed the stake home before hammering it down with the butt of his pistol.

"Irene," Rachel said, wiping her brow, "there is something wrong here."

"This guy was just sitting here and reading a Bible when we came in," Duane added, gingerly feeling out the back of his bald head.  "What the hell is going on?"

"You two should clear out now," I said and dashed out the door.  Ian Mackenzie was brilliant and not without a flair for the dramatic, despite what he might say to the contrary.  If Skyway was the start of it all, maybe he meant it to be the end of it all, at least for me.  "I have this feeling this is just another trap and I'm going to spring it," I continued, this time over the mics.

"No one is springing any traps," Ex called out with gunfire in the background.  I stared down at the doorknob to room 1127.  It was almost as if it was still that same evening when this had all began.  I expected to hear Eric call out from the room.

"Look, I'm not trying to get killed here," I argued, "but if I'm right, then if we don't spring it, Mackenzie knows we're coming.  If we set it off, at least we have the element of surprise."

"If that is the case, then hold your horses and let us finish clearing the last few humans."

"Right, of course."  I pulled my hand back from the door.  I had almost thrown it open while we were talking.  Stupid Irene, so lulled into the strange world of nostalgia you almost wrecked the present.  Assuming I was right, in any case.  If I wasn't, though, why was this a building of people expecting to die, living and undead alike?

I was taken off-guard when Mind's Eye suddenly floated down the hall, settling to a stop behind me.  The Indian seer smoothed out her sash and folded her arms behind her back.

"I asked everyone to clear out."

"Yes, and ...?"

"Well, you're right here, Mind."

"I am glad to see you have not suffered from my blindness during our brief absence."

That was when Tank rolled in, with Brooks and Choi sitting on his chassis.  Then Meds and Hex with Ex and Archer last.  I wanted to yell at them, I really did, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  I just glared at them ineffectually.

"You're not doing this alone, Irene," Ex said, much to my surprise.  "If this is a trap, we're facing it together."