Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1) (6 page)

What was I doing in this place, and what had I gotten up to all night?

Not knowing was pretty scary, I'll admit.

I'm no stranger to getting blackout drunk, to waking up in unfamiliar places with little recollection as to how I ended up there. This was a little different, though. When you're drunk, you're technically still in control. Lower inhibitions and all that, but you're still there, calling the shots. You can be held accountable for your actions if you hit the bottle too hard, and usually, unless you really fuck yourself up, you can remember what you've done over the course of a wild night. When someone else barges into your head and takes your body for a spin, however, it's another thing completely.

I gulped. This motherfucker inside of me was going to have some explaining to do.

Trouble was, I couldn't sense him. Under the circumstances, my heart was calm, beating normally, and that foggy feeling of being subdued had completely passed. It was like something had taken firm hold of me in one moment and then had suddenly let go in the next. I was free, in control once again, and had no idea what had transpired.

I started pacing through the house's many rooms, all of them strewn with garbage and burnt-out, and ducked through the windows, trying to find some evidence of what I'd done in my strange nocturnal state.

The last thing I expected to find outside the window was a cop car, its lights flashing as it drove up onto the lawn, practically to the front door of the house.

About a half dozen others followed, and cops spilled out of them as they screeched to a stop.

Guns drawn.

My blood turned to ice. “Oh, fuck.”

The cops were here, most of them wearing full tactical gear. Some of those guns were big; they weren't just carrying sidearms. It looked like they'd come to put down a gang of elephants. I chanced to peek out one of the windows again, and nearly caught a smoke grenade in the face.

The place was stormed by police before I knew it. They had me on the ground within seconds, were shouting orders to keep my head down, to keep my hands where they could see them. The barrels of high-powered guns were pressed into my body. More than one boot connected with my ribs; “accidentally,” I'm sure.

“You're under arrest, motherfucker,” uttered one cop, kneeling beside me and handcuffing me as roughly as he possibly could. Literally, he could not have twisted my arms behind my back and squeezed the cuffs on any harder without ripping my arms from their sockets.

I was crying. I'll admit it. Ever wake up in a strange place only to get manhandled by cops? I had no idea what I'd done to deserve this treatment, which made it all the worse. Had I killed someone? Taken a police car for a joyride? Nothing I could have possibly done over the course of a single night seemed worthy of this sort of treatment, but here they were, treating me like a lovechild of Hitler and Bin Laden.

The cold barrel of a rifle met the back of my neck. The metal pressed in hard, hard enough to leave a mark. A shot from this thing would sail straight through my spine and scatter my throat against the floor.

With my hands cuffed behind my back and the strange shorts I was wearing now soaked in my piss, I waited for the bang. This was it. I was about to get executed. Death by cop wasn't how I'd expected to go out of this world, but here I was, on this godforsaken property where I'd been killed once already.

NINE

I was pretty well into my sobbing when a booming voice broke through the commotion. It soared above the rest of the noise, and the cops around me fell into silence as their attention was directed at the newcomer. Big, loud footsteps could be heard across the floor. This guy was walking so hard I could feel it in my bones from across the room. “Hold your fire,” he barked.

“The fuck are you?” asked one of the cops.

I turned, trying to get a look at this guy, but only succeeded in catching a brief glimpse of the impressive-looking badge he held out. He was dressed in all black, but it wasn't tactical gear like the cops wore. A black suit, a black overcoat. Dude was wearing sunglasses, too, unless I was mistaken. The gun against my neck had eased off enough for me to turn my head, but I could only see so much.

“Back it up or I'll have your balls off before you can even say 'ouch',” said the guy in black, pointing to the cop who'd been ready to shoot me just a second ago.

“Who does this cocksucker think he is?” muttered one of the cops from nearby.

“Is he a fed? What the fuck is this?” asked another.

“We're in charge here,” said the thug above me, lowering the tip of the rifle till it touched the small of my back. He really dug it in there, giving it a little twist like he was trying to put out a cigarette.

The guy in black stopped in front of me, his polished black boots so close to my nose that I could smell the farm that'd produced the leather. “I'm only gonna warn you once,” he bellowed. “Back the fuck up.” This guy seemed to be on my side, but he wasn't one for delicacy. “You want to stay on the force? Collect that pension someday? Step away and maybe I'll give you that chance.”

“Now look,” said one of the cops, trying to keep his voice low. He was speaking more calmly, putting on his negotiator's voice. “This perp's got a rap sheet a mile long. He got up to some serious shit last night and we're not just going to let him walk out of here. You know how many good cops he assaulted last night on his way here? I've got the city's ICU's full of injured officers, I'll have you know. Theft, arson... The guy's an animal. If you had any sense you'd let us put him down right here, right now. We're entitled to use deadly force after all we've seen him do, and he's had repeated warnings to surrender--”

“I don't give a shit. Get the fuck out of here. Else you can talk it over with my superiors.” Outside, the sound of several vehicles approaching could be heard. Tires pounding pavement and brakes screeching. Then, footsteps. Lots of them.

It was with no little muttering that the cop backed up and removed his rifle from my person.

Before I knew it, I was being lifted off of the ground by my handcuffs by the guy in black. My shoulders ached as he pulled, and I quickly gained my feet, glancing around the room at the tense cops with all the fear of a lamb in the slaughterhouse. Without another word, the guy in black gave me a shove towards the doorway. Then, in a move that left me stunned, he grabbed one of the high-powered rifles from a nearby cop and shot the chain that held my cuffs in place. The chain broke easily and everyone in the room startled. Guns were pointed at us both.

“Relax,” said the guy in black, straightening his sunglasses and throwing the rifle to the ground. He led me out of the building, across the lawn and past the wall of cop cars, towards a black SUV parked some ways away. Its windows were tinted a deep black, too.

 
Damn, I guess this guy really likes the color black, eh?

 
A few other black SUVs of the same make and coloration were parked behind the cop cars, and from these there came a number of SWAT-looking guys. They didn't have any badges on, nor any lettering on their uniforms to let us know what department they were with, but one thing was for sure-- they were scary as hell. Some of these guys were big. I mean
NFL big
. Broad shoulders, a good foot taller than me, and so muscular in their tight black outfits they looked carved from stone. They ambled to the house, guns strung over their shoulders. This must've been my rescuer's backup.

The commandos coming out of the black SUVs started arguing loudly with the cops, but before I could glean the nature of their disagreement, which almost certainly had to do with me, the guy in black was throwing open the passenger-side door of an SUV and shoving me in.

This vehicle didn't have any plates, which gave me pause. I'd been rescued from the cops, but who were these guys? Had I just been tossed from the pan, into the fire? This reeked of the sort of covert ops you see in movies. This beefy motherfucker who was now dropping into the driver's seat, dressed in all black and wearing sunglasses despite the fact that the sun had barely risen, was the kind who made people disappear for a living. What had I gotten myself into?

I cleared my throat, the smell of my piss stinging my nostrils. I was too damn scared to be embarrassed, though. Sniffing, I wiped at my eyes and dried the last few tears that still crowded their edges. “So, uh,” I said in my steadiest tone of voice, “what the hell is going on, man?”

The man removed his sunglasses, tucking them into the breast pocket of his jacket. His skin was a little pale, and he ran a hand through his dark hair. His eyes, deep-set and intense, narrowed as he stared out of the windshield and tore onto the main street in a hurry. “Still trying to figure that out, Lucy.”

I cringed. “Lucy”. I'd been called that before. Everyone and their mother liked to call me “Lucy” for short. Kids in school had done it when I was young as an emasculating insult, and still others had done it as a misguided show of endearment. My older brother, Conrad, had always called me that, too. I hated it, but wasn't about to correct him.

He knew my name, though. How? I'd never met him before, I was certain.

“Who are you?” I asked. Then, I added, “And how do you know my name?”

“Chief Kubo,” he said without missing a beat. He slammed the accelerator and sped around a turn, starting for the highway entrance ramp. We were headed out of Flint in a hurry, though I couldn't say where to. “I'm with the Veiled Order,” he finished.

The Veiled Order. Wasn't that the organization Amundsen had mentioned in the hospital? The one who'd done this to me, and which had such great plans for me in the future?

I guess they'd sent those guys out to collect me, their precious possession. I was a dog that'd gotten loose, and they were the dog catchers, these guys who traveled in jet black vehicles and pushed the cops around. Did they have ties to the FBI or something?

“So, are you a federal agent?” I chanced.

Kubo didn't reply to that one.

“Are you taking me back to that hospital?”

Still no reply.

We were on the highway, coasting along at a cool eighty miles per hour. Kubo eased it up to eighty-five. He was the kind of guy who could afford not to give a fuck how fast he was going. No one in their right mind was going to pull him over, even without plates on his car.

“Why have you come for me?” I asked, exasperated by his silence.

He sighed. “Because it's my job. I'm your boss, idiot. Your babysitter, whatever.”

Now, what was that supposed to mean? “B-boss?” I tried the word out on my lips, but it didn't sound right.

That must've been because, to the best of my knowledge, I'd never signed up to work for this guy. I watched the highway scenery as it was lit up by the dawn and dropped my hands into my lap. “I don't remember signing anything... interviewing for any kind of job,” I said quietly.

Kubo smirked, but said nothing. He didn't give a damn.

TEN

When we made it to the facility and had parked the SUV in a large lot blocked off by tall gates sturdy enough to keep Godzilla out, Kubo led me inside by the arm. We walked in through a set of sliding double doors. The way forward was locked tightly, and it was only after he swiped a keycard and entered a ridiculously long string of numbers into a keypad that the inner door finally opened, revealing a lobby of great extent, and furnished with sleek furniture.

Not that there was anyone to be seen there.

 
We stepped inside and the door closed behind us with a hiss, effectively blocking the outside world from view. This was the kind of place where intense shit went down; dangerous, experimental pathogens might be developed here. Maybe this was where the President kept that infamous red button of his, for launching nukes. It occurred to me, too, that this could be the kind of remote facility where terrorists got spirited away to.
Am I about to get water boarded for busting out of here last night?
I wondered shudderingly. Kubo let go of my arm and took on a slightly more relaxed stance as he led me out of the lobby and down a narrow hall, accessed by-- you guessed it-- another long sequence of numbers.

“Is this some kind of FBI holding facility?” I squeaked as he started down the meandering hall. Like the lobby, this space was done up in a greyscale color scheme. The carpeting was a faint black color, the walls were slate and the ceiling a very light grey. The doors, of which there were several along the way, were of a dark black coloration; some kind of thick wood, stained with a rich varnish. The fluorescents were harsh, made the place feel sterile, and even as we turned a corner there wasn't a single window to be seen.

“No,” said Kubo. “We're not FBI, though we sometimes lie to law enforcement just to speed things along. It's easier to lie than to tell them the truth.” He charged ahead, picking one of the countless unmarked doors and pushing it open. A light came on automatically and he waved me inside. “We do have some members who are employed by the FBI, however. It helps us grease the wheels on those rare occasions when we have to deal with the feds.”

By the looks of it, it was a conference room. Looking and feeling like utter shit, I couldn't help but laugh. What, we were going to sit down and talk business with me looking half-dead and still damp with piss? It was ludicrous. I took the seat that was offered to me, a firm, leathery chair of which there were several, all arranged around a solid grey table. There were screens on both sides of the room and a massive projector bolted into the ceiling, with lenses on both sides. It reminded me of a lecture hall, and was every bit as stuffy. Not a hint of outside air had ever touched this space.

 
Well
, I thought, setting my hands on the table and staring down at the cuffs that were still locked around my wrists,
It's not the first time you've shown up for a lecture feeling like crap
. I remembered my college days, stumbling into Monday morning classes after weekends of hard drinking. Looking back on it, it was a miracle I lived, much less graduated. Kubo plucked me from my reverie as he dropped down into a chair of his own and cracked his big, beefy knuckles.