Masked (23 page)

They must have received the group
discount on black leather.

I rolled away and got back to my feet.

“Nice shot,” I said to Sara. “Are
you okay?”

“Will be once we get out of
here,” she said in a now raspy voice. “You?”

I smiled. “I’m fine. I’m durable.”

“Watch out!” Sara yelled with her
arms raised.

At her warning, I rolled to the
side and turned to see the red headed woman standing several yards back, her
arms also raised. Between us, just a couple feet from where I’d just been
standing was a large steel rod hanging horizontally in the air. It would have gone
right through my torso if I hadn’t moved. The woman’s face was strained as she tried
to hold the rod up. Sara’s face had a look of pointed concentration focused on
the rod as well, but not the strain the other showed.

Sara tried to reason with her. “Lila,
give this up now and we can help you. It was all a lie. This is not what you
are, what you were.”

Lila didn’t respond, but continued
to fight the force Sara focused at the rod. Lila’s face grew more twisted with
the apparent rage fueled concentration.

“Want me to shoot her again?” I
suggested.

“That’s not necessary,” Sara said
as she nudged her hands forward causing the rod to break free from its
stationary hold and rocket back towards Lila. Before impact, the rod turned sideways
to hit Lila with its broad side, knocking her off of her feet.

At the same time, the dart gun Sara
had dropped flew into her hand and she fired two quick shots at Lila, stopping
her before she was able to recover. Sara turned to where our fallen invisible
man was and fired two shots into him as well.

I laughed. “I think he was
already out.”

“The stun from the sonic blast is
only temporary. He would have recovered soon. Each dart is loaded with a
tranquilizer catered to those with abilities,” she explained and then put her
right index finger to her right ear and said “I have four of them down and two
others ready to move. One needs medical attention and the other is…” she paused
to look at me. “It is him.”

I noticed everyone else was gone.
They’d fled while we were distracted. Officer Raymond, thankfully still alive, was
lying on the ground shivering. I worked hard to repress the thoughts of what I’d
been about to do her before Sara intervened. I didn’t know how to sort through
the mixed emotions of abhorrence and elation I felt.

 “The rest left while we were
fighting. I don’t think the hold on the others was as strong as Angel, Lila and
Darius. It seemed their rational thought was trying to return. I can only hope
they’ll be able to fully recover from Peter’s manipulation. We can look for
them as well as the other followers who weren’t down here later.”

How was she alive and what was she
doing there? Who was she working with? For the past year when I’d thought she
was dead, she’d gone all secret agent and was now stopping super powered serial
killer cults? Surely, she didn’t still work for Titan? Was all now forgiven for
what they had done to her?

I left those thoughts as I
remembered officer Raymond.

“Let’s get her covered up and to
a hospital,” I said as I turned my attention to the broken woman shaking on the
ground.

I rushed over to one of the tall
dark curtains and pulled it down with a crash. I tore a section off just large
enough to wrap around her. Sara gently lifted her off of the ground and I wrapped
the section of dark curtain around her still shaking body.

“I have someone coming who will
be able to take care of her. They’ll be here soon,” said Sara.

Out of her jacket she pulled a
small injection gun.

“How much can you fit under that
jacket?” I said.

She just smiled while putting it
to the side of the officer’s neck and injecting her with whatever was inside. The
officer instantly fell asleep.

“She seems like a strong woman.
Hopefully she’ll be okay,” Sara said responding to the anguish I felt which I’m
sure was apparent on my face. “I wish I could have helped her sooner. I didn’t
know they had anyone.”

“Who’s coming? Who did you call?”
I asked. “What’s going on here?” I added not able to hold the questions in any
longer. “The last time I saw you, you were strapped on a table at the HUB
screaming.”

I paused for a few seconds.

“I thought you were dead, that
they had killed you,” I choked out.

Sara walked over to face me, now
standing only a few feet away. “I know Michael; I have a lot to explain. I’m so
sorry.” We were both just awkwardly standing there.

I didn’t know whether to demand
an answer or kiss her.

It was apparent neither of us had
prepared for the meeting. Whatever she’d been doing, whatever she knew about me
for the last year, she hadn’t expected to find me there.

The sudden shift in reality from
a world in which I’d lost Sara and was alone to this new world where Sara was there
standing next to me, was overwhelming. Add the atrocity I’d been just about to
commit only minutes before, and I wasn’t sure what to say or how to act. I looked
at Sara’s perfect face, a face that had only been real in memory and dream and saw
wetness in her perfectly blue eyes. I’d missed those eyes.

I was finally able to break free
of my paralysis.

I stepped to her and embraced her
stiff body. It felt so good to touch her. The rigidness in her body melted and the
embrace was returned. We just stood there for countless minutes without a sound,
tightly holding each other.

Sara broke the silence. “Sorry
Michael.”

I felt a sharp pain in my neck
and I jerked away from her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again.

I saw the injection gun in her
hand.

“What …” I started to say but couldn’t
get the words out.

The familiar spinning of the room
and blurry vision returned. The soft edges of Sara’s perfect form started to
blur together with the room around her. Light and darkness began to alternate
in a fight for the strongest shade. Darkness came out victorious.

How many times had I ended up unconsciousness
in the past few weeks? Three, four times? Definitely more than I’d ever want to
admit.

My eyelids weighed a hundred
pounds each as I tried to force them open. Whatever muscle controls the eyelids,
let’s just call it the eyelid muscle, didn’t want to cooperate. My head was
spinning from the sedative. I could tell I was lying on my back and could feel
a slight movement or vibration coming from below me, a constant rhythmic thrum.

My intention to move and the
actual result of trying to move did not synch. There were flashes of being
controlled by Peter and horrific images of what I almost did while under his
control. I then remembered Sara. She was alive. I wasn’t under Peter’s control
anymore.

As the process of waking continued,
my senses slowly began to absorb more of my surroundings. Along with the
rhythmic thrum there was a corresponding sound. Recognizing the combination of
the vibration and sound, I concluded I was in a vehicle traveling at a speed
probably in the fifty to sixty miles per hour range. In addition to that sound,
I could hear voices, slightly muffled by the sound of the road, but clearly one
of them was Sara’s.

At the recognition of her voice,
I tried to call out her name. What came out of my slack lips was something sounding
nothing like her name, along with a little drool I think.

“He’s awake,” she said and in
seconds I could feel her at my side.

I a soft hand touch my forehead
and slide down my cheek. “Michael. Are you okay?” Every sensation was numbed
from the sedative, but her touch still sent a charge through me.

“I can’t open my eyes or move,” I
said, this time my words a bit more coherent.

“That’s just the lingering effect
of the sedative in your system. It’s just starting to wear off. You’ll be able
to move soon.”

There was a pause and then she added
“I’m sorry I had to do that.”

“So is his lazy ass finally
starting to wake up?” I heard another deeper voice say.

It was a familiar voice; another
friend I thought was lost.

“Alex. Is that you? You’re alive
too?” Could it all be a dream? Was it possible Sara and Alex were both alive? How
could they be? I saw what they were doing to Sara and I abandoned Alex when I
left to look for her.

“Don’t sound so shocked. You
think I was going to let those Titan bastards get the best of me?” Alex said,
disrupting my train of thought.

“It’s great to hear your voice,”
I said.

“Same here man.”

“What’s going on here?” I asked.
“Sara, why did you do that to me? It wasn’t exactly the reunion I’d imagined
with you.”

She took my hand. I tried again
to open my eyes. The pressure holding the effort back was still there, but not
as strong as before. I was able to open them slightly for just a second, but
all I saw was blurry dim grey light.

“We don’t have time to explain
everything right now, but I promise this will all make sense soon,” she reassured
me.

“We’re currently in the back of a
truck. You’ve been unconscious for the last four hours and we’ve been driving
most of that time waiting for you to wake. Now that you’re awake, we’re heading
to our destination,” Sara said.

“We’ve known of your location
ever since the day you encountered James and Rachael in Montana. Over the past
year we searched and searched for you, but couldn’t find any sign of you. Alex was
able to connect several articles describing a mysterious masked vigilante who helped
the police find missing people and solve a crimes that had baffled the
authorities. The stories the articles reported were in a fairly limited
geographic area and not that far from the HUB. We concluded the masked
Good-Samaritan would continue to perform his good deeds. When we heard of the
disappearances in Troy, we headed there to find the masked hero, who we hoped
was you.

“You guys were in Troy?”

“Well, not us. One of our,” Alex
said and paused “um friends. Our friend wanted to find you and make sure, well,
that you were you.”

“Huh?” I was so confused.

I tried again to open my eyes and
with some effort, I was able to keep them open enough to finally see. The dim
grey blur of light started to take shape, edges sharpened, and I could see Alex
and Sara standing above me. Sara smiled.

“Hey beautiful,” I said.

Alex laughed. “I didn’t know you
felt that way about me.”

It was so good to see them, so
good to have my friends back, my family, despite the fact the family reunion
apparently included forced sedation. Whatever their reasons had been, it had to
have been necessary. I wouldn’t believe otherwise.

“We had to make sure you weren’t
under Titan’s influence before we tried to make contact with you. Our friend was
able to confirm that and then mark your vehicle so we could easily find you
again. James and Rachael got to you shortly thereafter. Our friend couldn’t do
anything to stop them. She couldn’t risk revealing herself.”

“Now wait a minute. Why are James
and Rachael with Titan? How did you two get away?” I asked.

“No time for than now, man,” Alex
said. “Yes. James and Rachael are with Titan.”

“Brian and Emily?” I asked.

The two of them looked at each
other again, a look of deciding how much to tell.

“Brian and Emily are also still
with Titan,” Sara said.

“Sorry, Michael I wish we could explain
more right now but it’s complicated. We need to hurry and finish telling you
just what you need to know before we arrive,” Sara added.

“Can you move yet?”

Although not yet feeling
one-hundred percent, I felt much better than I had upon first waking.

“I think so. Let me try and sit
up. Can you help?”

Sara took hold of my right arm
and slowly helped me rise from my back. Once seated, I felt more stable and I
thanked her for helping.

“Of course,” she said.

“So was it James and Rachael who left
me on that mountain road then?” I asked.

“Yes. Titan has been looking for all
of us. They found you, probably the same way we did and thought they could use
you to get to the rest of us. We think they assumed we’d be in contact with
each other. They wouldn’t have any reason to think otherwise,” Sara said.

“When they took you at the café,
they implanted a small tracking chip deep in the muscle tissue in your right
bicep. It’s something you would have never known was there due to the way we
heal, the incision from insertion was gone before you awoke. We think their
plan was to let you lead them straight to the rest of us. They’ve been
monitoring you ever since. James and Rachael have been in Seattle for the last
several weeks waiting for you to lead them to us.

“We lost track of you when you left
your truck in Idaho after the incident at the truck stop.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to tell us what
the hell that was all about,” Alex interrupted.

“It’s a long story. Maybe some
other time,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Anyway, in order to be brief, we
found you again just last week here in Seattle. We’ve been here for most of the
past year. We saw you sitting at the Cross and deduced you were trying to help find
who was behind the vampire killings.

“We’ve also been working to help
stop the killings. We found a lead the police didn’t have along other interests
involved in stopping who was behind them. For the time being, we decided we’d
just try and avoid you and approach you once we had stopped the killers. Please
believe me Michael, that’s not what I wanted, but what we had to do.

“Having discovered it was Peter
responsible, and he and his group were others with abilities, we decided the
only way to get close enough to him was for one of us to become adopted into
his cult. I was able to establish myself as one of them and gain their trust. I
was able to convince Peter to not force me to feed, but it wasn’t going to last
for long. I was just about ready to call in the cavalry…”

Alex interrupted “she means me.”

“Well, all of a sudden Angel came
and told me I had to come with her, that there was someone new who was ready to
feed. I followed her and you were there ready to feed on that poor woman. Of
course, I was glad to see you, but the circumstances were not the idea of my
perfect reunion.”

I cringed as I was again reminded
of what I had almost done.

“How is she, the officer?” I asked.

“She’ll be fine physically. We were
able to stabilize her and get her to an emergency room. Hopefully, she’ll recover
psychologically as well someday.”

“What happened to Peter and the
others?”

“They’re secure, well three of
them at least. Angel was able to get away. I’m not sure how, but she was gone
when I checked shortly after sedating you. We’ll deal with them after we are
done here.”

The fact she was still free frightened
me. Just knowing she existed frightened me.

“How were you able to resist his
control? I didn’t even know he was controlling me until you shut him down,” I said.

“Hey. I think we’re almost
there,” Alex interrupted.

“Sorry again. I’ll have to
explain all that later. I need to finish up before we get there,” Sara said.

I wanted to know what the sense
of needing to rush through everything was. It was frustrating. I didn’t know
what was going on and was getting more confused.

“We’ve been able to monitor the
movements of James and Rachael in Seattle without them being able to detect us.
Shortly before I gave you the sedative, they started moving towards our
location. It was close, but we were able to get you and the others out before
they arrived.

“Once we stop moving, it won’t
take them long to come to us, which is exactly the plan. I had to put you under
because there was no time to try to explain anything to you and we needed to
get the tracking chip out. We’re going to use the chip to lure them to us and
then we’ll ambush them.

“They’re being controlled by
Titan. If not for our escape, we’d all be under their control as well. Before
we awoke from our comas last year, a chip was inserted deep into each of our
brains. While inactive, it poses no threat. Once activated, our minds belong to
Titan. When they activate it, we’re no longer ourselves.

“Rachael and James have been
activated. All of the training and knowledge they gained while at the HUB was
retained. That knowledge is now just a tool to Titan they can control
absolutely. Our friend knows quite a bit about the technology used to control
them and thinks there is a way to deactivate the chip. What she’s unsure of is
what will be left afterwards.

“There’s a good chance if we’re
able to deactivate their chips, there will be nothing of James and Rachael
left. We have to try though. We owe it to them. We practically abandoned them.”

I could feel the truck start to
slow.

“We’re here,” Alex said.

I thought occurred to me. “Wait a
minute. If they were able to track me, surely James and Rachael have tracers in
them as well.”

“Actually, the activated chips
themselves transmit a frequency so Titan knows at all times where their assets
are. Once we neutralize James and Rachael, they’ll be restrained and loaded
into a vehicle that can block the signal. They’ll still be under the influence
of the directive received from the chip; they just won’t receive any updates to
that directive and won’t be able to transmit their location while the signal is
blocked.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

Sara explained. “Well to qualify,
none of us are tactical super geniuses; after all we never did get to that part
of our training. Our plan may have its faults, but it should work. You and I
will act as bait. When they find us, it should appear that just you and I are
meeting in this remote location. Alex will stay hidden, but nearby. If all goes
well, he will load them with tranquilizers before they can make a move towards
us. If all goes well, it should be easy.”

I didn’t sound like the best
plan. “Okay. I’m not sure I like the idea of you and I as bait.”

“How’s your aim?” I asked Alex.

He smiled. “Perfect, but don’t
worry if I hit you by mistake, it’ll wear off.”

“Just don’t miss them,” Sara said.

“Where exactly are we?” I asked.

“We’re at an abandoned paper mill
on the outside of town. We’ll have our staged meeting in an open area between
two of the buildings. Alex will be positioned on the roof of one of the buildings
with a clear view of the approach to the facility as well as our position. Our friend
will take the truck and park it behind the complex, out of sight. She’ll
monitor their approach and let us know when they’ve arrived. Alex should have
them fast asleep before they get near us. Of course, we’ll be armed just in
case he misses,” Sara said.