Jack Kursed (40 page)

"You telling me you don’t
sing and dance when you’re by yourself?" Erica asked.

"Definitely not."

She took the dish from his
hands and put it back in the sink. Grabbing a spare towel, she
dried his hands off, a playful spark in her eye. She held his hands
and used him for balance as she hopped away from the sink. She
danced, or as close to dancing as she could get on one good foot.
She swung her hips and rocked her arms, even raising their hands
over her head and spinning in a circle.

"You’re gonna break your
other foot."

"Nah. You’ll keep me from
falling."

Tiffany snickered and
pointed from the living room. She ran to them and grabbed their
hands, forming a circle. Erica and Tiffany rocked back and forth
and sang while Jack stood perfectly still, although he did have a
smile on his face.

"I let the two craziest women into my
life."

"Dance with us, Jack,"
Tiffany said. "It’s Katy Perry. She’s fun."

Jack was spared from further torment
when the phone rang, cutting off the music.

"Thank God. Tiffany, go hit that
speaker button for me."

Tiffany darted across the
living room as he held onto Erica, taking the opportunity to draw
just a little closer. He wasn’t a dancer, but watching Tiffany and
Erica have fun was fun all by itself.

Tiffany activated the speaker. Jack
had a good guess who it was.

"Hey, Victoria. How’s
it-"

"I got through," she said
to someone else. "Jack, I need some help. I’m at-"

The phone went dead, and Katy Perry
again filled the living room. Only now the fun was gone.

Jack and Erica traded
confused looks as he helped her to the bar. He retrieved his phone
from the dock. Victoria didn’t call from her own phone. It was an
unlisted number.

"That was Victoria, right?" Erica
asked.

"Yeah."

"Do you know where she is?
Got a flat tire or something?"

Victoria wouldn’t ask for
Jack’s help over a matter such as a flat tire.

"I’ll go to her hotel,
make sure everything’s okay. Would you mind watching Tiffany until
I get back?"

"Jack?" Erica said. She
held Jack’s gaze, sensing something more was going on than he was
letting on.

"My sister gets in trouble every now
and then. She helps people, and sometimes I need to help
her."

"Don’t worry," Tiffany
said, running to hug him. "Nothing can hurt Jack."

They were simple words
from an excited child, but Jack could see in Erica’s eyes that she
wasn’t dismissing them. Erica looked back and forth from Tiffany to
Jack. She grabbed a crutch and made her way to the both of
them.

"I know you’ve got
secrets," she said. "But is everything okay? Seriously?"

He smiled. "It will be.
And I’d like to fill you in on those secrets one day."

A half smile crossed her face as she
leaned in to kiss Jack on the lips. Tiffany gasped next to them and
jumped up and down.

"Jack and Miss Hernandez,
sitting in a tree-"

Jack and Erica smiled as they broke
their kiss, and he looked down at his daughter.

"You take care of her
while I’m gone, okay? Don’t kick her cast or anything like
that."

"I won’t, I
promise."

"Good. Give me a hug."

He lifted Tiffany into his
arms for a big hug. He kissed her on the cheek before setting her
back down.

"Okay, you two behave
while I’m gone. No wild parties." He winked at Erica. "See you
soon."

CHAPTER 18

Jack stepped out of
the hotel elevator and walked down the hall. He
wasn
’t on the fourth floor, but the
second. Collins’ floor. He carried a spare key to Collins’ room
that cost him a hundred dollars. There was no point in going to
Victoria’s room. She wasn’t there, and the best way to find
Victoria was to politely ask Collins what he was involved
in.

Or not so politely.

He didn’t operate the same
way as Victoria. She preferred to work from the shadows, only
showing force when necessary. Victoria would kill if necessary, but
she liked to leave people alive. He never understood why. She
always claimed it was because she might need to revisit them one
day. His theory was when Victoria spared a life it made her feel a
little more human. Jack knew he left his humanity behind a long
time ago, after many years without sleep.

Collins would tell Jack everything he
needed to know, and then he would die.

Jack slid the key-card
through the lock and gently pushed open the door. He scanned the
darkened room as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
The only light came from the street lights outside the
window.

There was a man in the
corner, in the shadows. He would have been invisible to anyone but
Jack. He didn’t know who it was, but knew it wasn’t Collins.
Whoever it was held a gun at his side.

Jack decided to play
along, and stepped further into the room. The man raised his gun
and shot Jack in the leg, a silencer muffling the sound. Jack fell
to the floor, ready to let out a fake scream, when the man jumped
on him and covered his mouth.

"Shhh. If you scream, I’ll
kill you. Do you understand?"

Jack nodded.

The man used a remote to
turn on the TV, giving the hotel room some background noise. He
grabbed Jack’s shirt and threw him on the bed, and moved to turn on
the light.

Jack looked into the eyes
of a mortal male. Probably close to fifty years old, sharply
dressed, a cold look in his eye. He pointed his gun at
Jack.

"I’m gonna ask you some
questions. If you want to live through tonight, you’ll answer
them."

"Look, I just want to find
Collins. Do you know where he is?"

He shot Jack in his other leg. Jack
slapped his hand over the hole in his jeans and caught the bullet
before it could roll to the bed, giving his game away. He let out a
fake moan of pain.

"I said I’m the one asking
the questions here. You’re the one who stole his data, aren’t you?
You and a woman."

That single question told Jack
everything he needed to know.

"Hmm," Jack said, leaning
up slightly. "It’s making sense now. You probably kept tabs on
Collins. You’re covering your tracks now. No doubt you killed the
good doctor. That’s what I would have done. Now you need to see
where his data went, and you’re hiding out here looking for a
lead."

Jack stood up and brushed
his clothes off. The man flinched at Jack’s lack of pain, and shot
him in the shoulder. Jack didn’t hesitate as he took a step forward
and kicked the man in the groin, sending him to the ground. He
kicked him one more time and stomped on his stomach. The man tried
to raise his gun through the pain, but Jack snatched the gun from
his hand and grabbed a finger, bending it backwards. He pounced on
him before his scream grew too loud.

"Now," he said.
"It’s
my
turn to
ask you some questions. But, I have to be honest, you’re not gonna
live through tonight. You have no choice in that. You
do
have a choice in how
you go. You can go quickly. You can go with no skin. Or we can get
creative. I’ll find your family. Are you
listening?"

He spit in Jack’s
face.

"Fuck you-"

Jack grabbed another
finger and broke it. He used the man’s shirt to wipe the spit from
his face.

"The longest time it took
me to break a person was twenty-eight minutes. I don’t think you’ll
break any records. Let’s start with something simple. What’s your
name?"

"Travis."

"Good. Now, Travis, I’m
looking for a friend of mine, the woman you mentioned
earlier."

"Some of our security team was
trailing a woman. They ended up talking gibberish, not even knowing
how they got where they were."

"She’s special like that.
She called me tonight, and was ready to tell me where she was when
the call went dead. So she is someplace. I’d like for you to tell
me where."

Travis was silent, just a
moment too long. Jack pressed the barrel of the gun into Travis’
palm and pulled the trigger. He covered Travis’ mouth as he cried
and convulsed in pain. He admired the gun. Travis had thought
ahead, bringing a silencer for the weapon.

"Listen very carefully. I
don’t care what secret shit you guys are in to. I don’t care about
Collins. I certainly don’t care about you. I care about my friend.
You will take me to where she is."

"If she got a look at
Collins’ data, she might have found the facility."

"Now we’re getting
somewhere. We’re gonna take a little drive. You’ll show me this
facility."

"They’ll kill
me."

"I told you. You
already
are
dead."

"Then my last words
will be
fuck you
."

Jack laughed. That was
fairly clever. He stood up, keeping a foot on Travis’ stomach. He
pulled out his iPhone and took Travis’ picture.

"What are you doing?"

"I’m sending your mug shot
to some of my associates. They’ll have your last name in ten
minutes. Then we’ll start rounding up your family and friends,
anyone you’ve ever loved. They’ll be slowly tortured, and with this
phone here we’ll be able to watch. I love technology."

"You’re...serious?"

"Always."

"I’ll...take you
there."

"Smart choice. We’ll take
your car, you drive. It’ll be fun."

*****

It took over an hour to arrive at
their destination. Travis drove while Jack kept the gun pointed to
his side the entire drive. Jack shook his head as they turned from
the highway onto a dirt road and drove through the
woods.

"It wouldn’t be a secret
facility unless we drove to the middle of nowhere, would
it?"

"The world’s not ready for
what we’re doing," Travis said. "They wouldn’t
understand."

"Is this government
funded?"

"No. If they knew what we
were doing, they’d shut us down."

The woods slowly gave way
to a clearing, and a large fence up ahead. He saw the three-story
building with lights throwing shadows over boxes and trucks. There
was movement, figures walking in the darkness. He immediately
recognized their gait, their sluggish movements.

"You have got to be
fucking kidding me."

The ghouls perked up at
the new noise. They sauntered over to the fence as Travis drove
alongside. The smell of rotting flesh was thick in the air. Jack
watched the ghouls as they pushed and clawed at the fence, breaking
fingernails and tearing flesh. Some were old lab technicians,
doctors, security guards. A few wandered naked in the
herds.

"Oh God," Travis said. "I
haven't checked in for a few days. Something’s gone
wrong."

"Do you think so? This is what you
idiots are working on? Ghouls?"

"The greatest weapon. A
soldier that doesn’t really die."

"I’m guessing you don’t
let them wander the yard like this?"

"No. Containment’s been
broken. Fuck."

Memories from a hundred
years ago flooded back as Travis pulled up to the main gate. Jack
couldn’t help but wonder the source of these ghouls. Did they have
a witch locked up somewhere, cooking up spells? Hope he hadn’t felt
in a long time tugged at him, but he pushed it aside. If they had a
witch in their possession, they wouldn’t need ghouls as a
weapon.

The ghouls followed Travis
as he parked and left his car, Jack a step behind. He followed
Travis to a terminal, the ghouls reaching and snarling at them.
Travis worked at the keyboard before an image of a security desk
showed up on the monitor.

"Hello? This is Travis.
What’s going on in there?"

He was answered by a ghoul walking by
the desk. Its arm fell off as it walked down a hallway.

"Shit," Travis said, and
switched to another camera. He didn’t bother speaking when he saw
four ghouls eating a corpse. "They’re everywhere."

"Yeah, ghouls tend to do
that."

Travis looked at him. "You
act like you’ve seen this before."

Jack scowled as his last
chance at salvation flashed through his mind. He saw the witch
Annie lying dead, from Victoria’s hand, by the river, a town of
dead ghouls a horse-ride away.

"Try another room."

Travis switched cameras
once again, this time peering into a lab. At first Jack thought
they were only more ghouls, but noticed a man in a lab coat pacing
near a row of operating tables. A man and woman dressed in similar
coats talked to each other near the back of the room. A smile
stretched across his face when he recognized a beautiful redhead
laying on one of the tables.