Frost (6 page)

His coat had torn along the lapel, shocking as an open wound, the thick oxblood leather cleaved as though a mere sheet of cotton. Blood coated his beard and hands, but from where Jack couldn’t see. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, unmistakable childish surprise written onto his face.

Christ, he’s on the ropes.

Barry struggled to rise then slumped back onto the crumpled Prius. Barry's whispering voice carried clear as the ice blossoming at Jack’s feet: “Shit.”

Jack started forward despite himself, then laid eyes on the suited man, and froze.

The man hadn’t moved from the middle of the street, standing in the dignified repose of a business professional awaiting the end of some tiresome pleasantry. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in any boardroom, were it not for the bloodied sabres trailing from each hand.

He was looking right at Jack. “So he’s got himself another fool sprinkled with pixie-dust.” He spat the words, as though they were sour in his mouth. Then, a sibilant sigh that slackened Jack’s bladder, “There’s always one.”

Jack could only look back at him. He felt he should say something, anything, stall until Barry could right himself. But nothing came, not even a whimper. He just stared.

The ghost of a smile flashed on the suited man’s lips.

What’s the point of getting special powers if they get you ripped open five minutes later?
The thought throbbed in the forefront of his mind, and then the man in the suit was walking towards him.

Jack had never been one to act first and think later. Two decades of being the proverbial deer in the headlights left him expecting to stand there frozen in place, as the monster crossed the street to disembowel him.

Yet he moved. Without any input from his consciousness, his body sprang to life, and he bolted from a standing-start like a racehorse out of the box. After the headlong run through the city, he couldn’t believe his unexercised muscles were capable of such a feat. He had no idea where he was going, even in which direction, only that he was moving.

Dozens of faces flashed past and he vaulted the halo of ice, hurtling into the safety of the crowd. He came closer to losing control of his bladder then, than he had in memory, driven by a livid screaming dread. He could sense the clawed monster, not just behind him, in pursuit; but feel him, up close, as though they stood but a hair’s width apart.

An ugly, jelly-wet digit lapped at his nape, and he almost screamed with the unpleasantness of it. Then that sighing voice spoke once more, echoing inside his skull. “Dear me, dear, dear, dear… Whatever shall we do with you?” The minutest titter. “I think I’ll start with flaying that pretty face off.”

Jack rounded a corner, bright spots of colour exploding before his eyes, giddy with nausea, then screeched once again as yet another ugly prod thrust into his head, this one familiar.

His newfound second sight told him that he was being followed, an internal sonar blip that throbbed in his bowels. But he didn’t dare look back, not once. If he did, and saw that smouldering smile behind him, he would die. Die before he hit the floor.

“Get back here and finish what you started, worm!” roared Barry, a disembodied echo in the eternal space inside Jack’s head.

Jack flashed past a convoy of NYPD squad cars barrelling down the street back towards Forty Sixth, ignoring the still-scrabbling masses of fleeing people around him, and clutched at his ears. “Stay out of my head!” he screeched aloud.

The pandemonium around him was such that nobody paid him any attention.

He kept going, placing one foot in front of the other, slowly regaining control of his limbs, feeling the raw screaming agony of his muscles, begging to stop, not caring for his fate. His lungs were ablaze, each breath a battle.

All that kept him going were the creeping shivers that climbed his back, as though the suited man were brushing the nape of his neck with his fingertips, caressing, as a serial killer might in a B-movie before getting to work with the knife.

“What was the old fool’s plan? Save the world and be home in time for apple pie? I can’t believe they sent him, of all Highcourt’s goons. Not only is he far too weak for the likes of me, the stupid goat never does his homework. He’s far too late to save you now.”

Jack groaned, certain his brain would implode from the strain. Each intrusion, each prod, stretched and tore the unseen fabric holding him together, a fleshy twine not meant for meddling.

“Come now, don’t be so shy. Talk to dear old Mr Harper.” The voice took on an ethereal banshee wail
. “
I’ve so many questions!
”

He was being played with. He knew the man could have been on him in a moment and dispatched Jack before he could turn around, if his pursuer had wanted. These men, other-worlders, whatever they were, moved too fast to be matched by even Olympic athletes.

It wasn’t until he heard the squeal of rending metal behind him that he finally stopped, and turned. For a moment he couldn’t process what he was seeing, a vast mass of twisted aluminium and glass in the distance, catapulting through the air in a shower of blue and red light.

Then he realised that one of the squad cars had been cut to ribbons, still travelling at forty miles per hour as four razor-sharp claws tore it and its occupants like gift ribbon. The shower of metal and glass hurtled into the masses of stupefied bystanders back on Forty Sixth, revealing the clawed monster in the middle of the street, a murderous sneer on his lips, claws splayed out to either side.

The other squad cars screeched to a stop before him and the officers leapt out behind the open doors, pistols drawn. Each bellowed for him to put his hands on his head and “Drop the knives!”

Jack had time to notice the suited man roll his eyes and fix them with a withering stare. By the time the man had surged forth in a blur of red and black, and the shooting started, a hand gripped Jack roughly by the collar.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Jack yelled, hands over his head.

The hand jerked him roughly. “Shudap, you idiot, it’s me!”

Jack blinked and caught sight of Barry slumped beside him, white-faced and panting. He looked like death itself.

“How did you—?”

“He’s playing cat and mouse, but I’m not out for the count,” Barry wheezed. He staggered, and Jack caught Barry in his arms, all the wind knocked out of him by the Scot-but-not’s shocking weight.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Now what?”

“Run.”

“Run?”

“Bloody run, you fool. I was wrong. We’ve got to re-think this.”

“What happened to ‘
saving the bloody world
’?”

Barry shook his head, gripping Jack’s shoulder so hard he winced. “He’s not supposed to be here. Not him. And he’s… so strong. This is all further ahead than I thought.” He cursed. “We’re in real trouble here. A clock’s ticking down somewhere.”

“Where do we go?”

“Anywhere. Away.”

They both snapped their heads up to the sound of screaming. The gunfire had stopped abruptly. Jack saw a blur of squad cars covered with streaks of red and gristle, and a glimpse of those wide staring eyes. Yet more sirens were approaching from all directions, under a minute away.

A strange, retarded sound escaped Jack’s mouth as he felt that other presence withdraw from his mind, like fingers abruptly yanked free. He fought collapse one last time, and hauled Barry to his feet, ignoring fresh pain in his back as something popped. Together, they staggered away into the anonymous depths of Manhattan, away from the carnage.

Harper wiped a shower of freshly-cleaved cop from his face and sighed. Those stains would never come out.

All around him were littered the remains of two of the squad cars, cut clean along the longitudinal axis like engineer’s cross-section blueprints. Half a human, sliced just as cleanly, still sat in one of the passenger seats, an expression of slight surprise on his face.

Harper pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and spat into it, dabbing daintily at his Armani shirt, t
then rubbing with more vigour.

Vaguely he perceived the hundreds of stupefied fools, fixated on him as he stood there amidst his work. But as usual, they seemed so far away, so far beneath him—so much less
real
than him—that it was hard to pay them any mind.

So had it been for, what, half a century? All this time planning, moving the pieces into place, waiting for the signal to start the process; every moment had required immense reservoirs of patience.

It had been slow, but so very easy, to rise above the masses, to manipulate and build an unseen empire. A few payoffs, some wise investments, a handful of strategic threats, and the deal was done.

If it hadn’t been for the meddler and his trusty new sidekick, it would be over by now. A few hitters he could manage, but this… maybe the humans had found out the plan somehow. The Web did strange things, after all, and took no sides. But if Kaard was here, that meant the game was up. Something had sent him.

Harper would have to act fast.

He shook his head at the sight of the unmoved spots of blood on his shirt.

Definitely stained.

Rolling his eyes, he strolled around the side of the remaining squad car, ignoring the scattering flocks of people ahead of him. More sirens were almost upon him, but he would make time to take a little pleasure.

One of the officers was crawling back from the shrapnel that had once been the passenger door, his arm reduced to a ragged slab of meat. Shaking with shock, blubbering as a child looked upon a creaking bedroom wardrobe at night, his pathetic shuffling sent a shiver running along Milton’s spine. He unsheathed his claws as he approached.

It was a gruff ox of a man, mid-fifties with a bushy salt-and-pepper moustache and pot belly to match. The kind of unshakable pillar that kept on ticking over during school shootings and national disasters because it was their duty.

There he lay, open mouthed and weeping, covered in his own urine.

Harper didn’t wait for the begging to start. That always ruined it. He struck in a single downward slash, and let his claws do their work. He didn’t do it for the bloodshed, but for the fear and pain; the delicious momentary pulse of abject horror that tasted so good, so good.

It was interesting to hear an entire human body unzipping. They almost seemed to burst, sometimes. The sound was that of two giant pieces of Velcro being wrenched apart.

Harper closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to savour the spray against his cheeks. If his apparel was already stained then he might as well loosen up a little. He groaned with the succulence of it.

Then the sirens came sharply to his attention. He had seconds left before they rounded the corner.

Lucky these ants can’t see but an inch in front of their faces.

With the kind of speed that would have made him a blur to the remaining bystanders, he left the middle of the street and the rubble field of twisted metal. As soon as he crossed over two blocks he sensed the crowds resume their same old drudgery, and with each step thereafter he slowed his pace. When he met a gaggle of tourists on a night-tour of the sights, he fell right into step with them.

For a moment he held his heels aloft, ready for flight, but then the first back-up NYPD cruiser blared past him, heading for Forty Sixth.

Blind as moles.

He kept walking until he no longer heard any gabbling about “something
freaky
over at
Barnes & Noble
”
,
or “terrorists carving people up around the corner”, then ducked into another payphone booth.

Despite himself, he patted his jacket and pants in search of change
. I’ve been here too long
, he thought, grimacing. What was he hoping to find in his pockets, anyway? You didn’t carry a lot of quarters when you were in the top one-percent.

He flexed his index finger such that the fingernail slid forth into a slot and immediately heard an electronic sizzle from the receiver. Closing his eyes, he scoured the primitive cyberspace, found the connection he wanted, and got a dial tone.

The call picked up to the sound of the same dead-pan voice from earlier. “Yes?”

“Well?”

A pause. Perhaps a glimmer of nervousness. “No progress. We’re meeting resistance everywhere.”

Harper took the receiver away from his ear and drew a long, steadying breath. “I don’t care about the VIPs anymore. We can afford to lose a few.”

“But we’re still missing more than half—”

“I said forget it. They can vanish for all I care. What matters is getting things in motion. Tell me the other Beacons are ready.”

“Like I said, you just have to pull the trigger. You’re there, right?”

Something loosened in Milton’s black heart. “I got my own problems.” He wasn’t inclined to blubber like the humans, but even demons had their boogeymen. “Keep things together.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes!” Harper spat, and threw down the receiver. He stepped from the booth and headed south. He no longer cared for cops. They would never find him.

Yet, despite himself, hating the compulsion and snarling all the while, he couldn’t help throwing a cautious look over his shoulder.

Those bastards are still out there.

“Stop here,” Barry gasped, pointing through a ratty chain-link fence, indicating a dumpster spilling over with cardboard.

Jack groaned with the effort of stalling their forward momentum. Barry’s hulking form seemed to possess some greater inertia than ordinary matter, resisting impetus, as though Jack were pushing against an engine gunned in the opposite direction.

Together they stumbled against the dumpster and slumped, wheezing and spluttering.

The sirens still wailed in the distance, but it seemed that they had failed to track the suited man; no more shots had been fired.

With time to finally breathe, the bubble of thoughtlessness in Jack’s head popped, and all the fear and outrage and confusion came crashing back.

He burst out, “What the hell was that? Why take us running right up to that monster if you knew what he was? If you know he was just going to tear you a new one?” His voice broke. “I almost died.”