Masked (2010) (42 page)

Downfall turned—and took a two-armed swing of the heavy stalk off his protected temple, a mere glancing blow that caused him to stumble back in surprise. Marshall cursed his instincts, followed up with a barrel strike to the more vulnerable unprotected chest area. Too slow. Downfall intercepted the blow, twisted the weapon out of his grasp, and delivered a backhand sweep that would have caved in his skull had Marshall not had the presence of mind to duck. Marshall followed through with a mid-core punch. The suit’s free-flowing construct shifted, absorbing part of the impact. Marshall felt his hand break, the fourth and fifth knuckles shocking numb, but the second and third knuckle scoring flesh and winning an unmistakable and satisfying rib fracture, staggering his opponent. Marshall sprang back and spun around to deliver a roundhouse kick to the injured area. He was inhumanly quick, but no match for Downfall, who caught his ankle, swung him wide, then let go, sending him skittering across the rooftop to crash against the brick perimeter abutment.

Downfall advanced, the smart chip in his suit already adjusting to the attack on its neural network, the active nanite shield’s unstable pattern shifting back to uniformity. Marshall knew it was now or never. He jumped up to meet his advancing opponent, springing forward with superhuman speed, ducking another blow and coming in with an open-hand, closed-fingered strike designed to end it there and then, pierce the chest wall and penetrate the heart. Instead, the blow was deflected with almost casual indifference, snapping his left wrist in the process and catching his lower jaw with a glancing blow that broke it as well. Marshall staggered back, had his foot catch the abutment, and toppled. Almost over—but Downfall saved him, grabbing him by the collar and snapping
him back, swinging him around, away from the drop, up close, then delivering a restrained headbutt that broke his nose, fractured the occipital bone below his left eye, and brought him to the precipice of consciousness. His knees gave out and he collapsed.

He was beyond exhausted, his body spent, his mind scrambling to maintain focus as Downfall stepped up to loom over him, triumphant.
The king is dead. Long live the king
. Marshall tasted blood and spat. In his weakened state, he barely managed it. The spittle dribbled out the side of his mouth and ran down his cheek. He tried to lift his head, but even that proved a task too Herculean for his present state. And so, he waited.

Downfall gave a shake of his head, reached up with his right hand, and triggered the remote on his arm band, dialing back the suit. It swept away like a black tide, retreating to just above his shoulders to reveal a smiling Terry Langan. “Hey, Marsh,” he greeted him. “What’s up?”

Marshall was surprised. Honest to God he was. And if he’d been up to it, he certainly would have expressed his dismay at the shocking turn of events. But he wasn’t, so instead, he settled for a disgusted grunt.

Terry shook his head. “What a difference eight years makes, huh, buddy? Bet you kind of regret not taking Virtue up on his offer now.” Terry paused, as if awaiting some sort of response, then continued: “Some of us aren’t as lucky as you, Marsh. We don’t get everything handed to us. We have to seize our opportunities, make our own future, you know what I’m saying?”

Fuck it. Ignoring the overwhelming pain, Marshall pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“New suit, new name,” said Terry matter-of-factly. “I’m considering going with. . . Munition. What do you think?”

Marshall gathered himself, looked up at his former friend, and, despite the state of his jaw, managed: “Munishuns.”

“What was that?”

“Munishuns,” Marshall repeated. “Ith plural ya thtupid fuck.”

“Is it?” Terry frowned, considered, then shrugged. “Well, fuck
it. Who’s gonna correct me?”

A crack of gunfire interrupted their conversation. Both men glanced over as—

A shadowed form stepped out of the doorway and slowly advanced on them, arm extended, gun in hand, the other hand supporting his shooting wrist. Agent Bryerson stepped into the light.

Terry smirked and went for the arm band, but Marshall had already calculated the move, expending his last reserves to lunge forward and slap his broken hand over the trigger. Terry tried to pry him off, but Marshall’s hold was a superhuman death grip. Another gunshot. Another whistled miss. Bryerson quickly closing the distance.

Marshall never saw the blow that shattered his left clavicle and forced him to release his hold. As he fell back he heard the third shot, saw Terry reach for the arm band and then suddenly pause as if reconsidering. A look of deep concern fell over him as he reached up and cupped his chin. He pulled his hand back. It came away slick and sticky. The fourth shot blew through one cheek and out the other, shattering teeth and bone. Marshall saw his old friend teeter and drop out of sight.

Dizzy and disoriented, he watched Bryerson step into view and casually empty his clip into his target. Then, he turned and addressed Marshall. But Marshall couldn’t hear him. All was silence as the darkness crept in on him, closing out all but a tunnel to his former reality, growing tighter and dimmer. Bryerson, at the other end of that tunnel, yelling something at him.

And in a sudden moment of clarity, Marshall marveled at their ingenuity. If only his cluttered mind had caught it earlier: that group shot of The Terror Syndicate, the pixyish Silver Sylph practically leaning up against her teammate Doc Arcanum, Virtue’s endless benevolence. His whole life, the answers had been there all along. He’d simply been asking the wrong questions. And he thought of Allison and how different things could have been and how he would have loved to start over with her one more time, really start over.
And then the darkness claimed him.

Contusions, abrasions, multiple lacerations, concussion, occipital bone fracture, shattered left clavicle, compound wrist fracture, multiple rib fractures, dislocated right shoulder, punctured lung, right elbow fracture, multiple fractures to both hands, fractured jaw, fractured nose, rotator cuff tear, ankle strain, groin pull, and a partial tear of the left ACL. All in all, he got off lucky. By the time they wheeled him into the OR, his bones had already started to reknit, much to the amazement of the medical staff, who were then forced to rebreak and set the radius and ulna of both forearms.

He was in terrible pain through those initial twenty-four hours as his advanced regenerative abilities kicked in to repair the damaged muscles, patches of scar tissue fibers taking form overnight and guaranteeing a less than restful sleep. By morning, however, his body was breaking down the scar tissue, restoring muscular alignment, and he was feeling well enough to go for a short walk—down the hall to Room 217 to pay McNeil a visit—only to be intercepted by a cantankerous nurse and ushered back to bed. When he tried again later that day, slipping out during what seemed like a quiet enough moment, she was waiting for him. After that, a large intern of Samoan descent stationed outside his room ensured there would be no third attempt.

The following day, he was discharged. While waiting for Allison to pick him up, he took another stroll down to 217. This time, he encountered no obstacles and managed to complete the journey, finding a recuperating and spirited McNeil in the company of his fiancée, a pretty blonde who had just landed herself a position at a boutique East Coast law firm. According to McNeil, he had already requested a transfer and, once well enough, would be making the move. Marshall sat with them for a while and then, at the appointed time, wished them all the best and excused himself. “See you at the wedding then?” McNeil asked him.

“Sure,” said Marshall, holding up at the doorway and throwing
them a wink. “See you then.”

By the time he got downstairs, Allison was already there. “Waiting long?” he asked as he made his uncertain approach. Her response was a long, drawn-out sigh of unmistakable relief. She fell into his arms. They held each other wordlessly until they began to draw curious looks from passersby. Then, Allison said, “Let’s go home.”

Months passed. His mother was given a clean bill of health and moved into a place twelve blocks away. “Close enough,” as Allison was fond of saying. They settled in. She was promoted, joined several weekend charity drives. He landed a job with the local branch of a major pharmaceutical company and finally got that library card he’d been putting off. In early February, Allison announced she was pregnant. Time passed. They were happy.

Finally, that spring, while in the area on company business, Marshall drove the forty miles out to pay Agent Bryerson a visit.

“What’s this?” asked the stone-faced bruiser when Marshall presented him with the gift-wrapped bottle.

“An overdue thank-you present,” said Marshall.

Bryerson sized up the bottle, gave a satisfied nod, and set it down on his desk. “Yep,” he said. “I save your life, you get me a bottle of wine. Sounds about right.”

“A great bottle of wine,” Marshall clarified.

“No doubt,” said Bryerson, throwing him his shark grin. He motioned toward the doorway. “Come on. Let’s go do this and then you can take me to lunch.”

It was a request Marshall had made months ago and Bryerson was happy to accommodate. No rush. Even though the case was closed, its evidentiary material wasn’t going anywhere. It would be drawing the scrutiny of investigators and eggheads for some time to come.

Bryerson led him to a room at the end of a long corridor, unlocked the door, and waved him in. The halogen lights flickered to life, casting their ice-blue illumination down on the facts and figures of the investigation. “The Downfall suit isn’t here, of course,”
Bryerson informed him.

“Didn’t think it would be,” Marshall said as he scanned the various photos and documents laid out in front of him.

“The army hired that little brainiac, QuickThink—you know him—?”

“Yeah, I know him.”

“—to reverse-engineer the suit. He thinks he can have special forces outfitted by middle of next year.”

But Marshall’s mind was elsewhere. He’d already spotted what he’d come for—confirmation sitting on a table at the back of the room. He approached it, pointed. “This how the ferenium-17 was delivered?”

“Yeah. They figure it was dusted on a copy of his own book he was asked to sign. The return address was bogus, but he never got around to sending it anyway. I mean, isn’t that a kick in the pants. No special bullet or elaborate trap. It was just sent regular mail.”

Marshall picked up the box and studied its Chinese motif—a gold dragon embossed on a crimson red backdrop. Incredibly, after so many months, it still held the scent of jasmine and sandalwood.

A two-time
winner of the British Fantasy Award, Mark Chadbourn is the critically acclaimed author of sixteen novels and one nonfiction book, including the Age of Misrule series of
World’s End, Darkest Hour
, and
Always Forever
, and the Swords of Albion series that begins with
The Silver Skull
. A former journalist, he is now a screenwriter for BBC television drama. In the world of comic books, Mark is the author of
Hellboy: The Ice Wolves
, a novel-length tale of Mike Mignolia’s famous creation. Whether his imagination takes him to the distant past or peels back the curtain on the darkness lurking in our present reality, Mark always presents us with strong, accessible characters dealing with supernatural horrors, the invasion of the numinous on the everyday.

M
ARK
C
HADBOURN

One hour after
the body had been buried in an unmarked grave, he set fire to the box of memories on the roof and prepared to greet the dawn with something approaching hope.

When the embers of his past had cooled, he was ready to take the steps down into the penthouse, where he could finally remove the mask. Every muscle burned, and blood still leaked from the knife wound in his side.

Only a shadow was reflected in the mirror in the lounge, bisected by the lightning strike that cracked the glass from top to bottom. Black, tight-fitting body armor, nano-engineered to absorb all light so he could ghost across the surface of life, a shimmer of dark against a darker world.

Nox
, the name he had chosen for himself when he had been
reborn. In mythology, Nox was a she, but as the personification of the night, it was too fitting to pass up. It was only later he realized Nox gave birth to sleep and death, fate and blame.

Stripping off his mask, he thought briefly of how haunted his face appeared. But what did he expect from a man who had just killed the person closest to him? As his eyes glistened, his acute vision saw it like a flare at sea; a distress call.

Locating the medical supplies, he sprawled in a chair while he tended to his wounds, looking out the picture window over San Francisco at its darkest, in that hour before dawn. Soon it would be waking; soon he would be sleeping.

Once he’d stanched the blood flow, he began the digital recording, his nightly ritual, a confessional and a chance to make sense of what his life had become. One day he would have to play all the recordings back, review his experiences. But why would he want to do that? Living through them once was enough.