Gutterres swallowed hard. That was very bad. He was going to need to send for reinforcements.
“Show me the eldest.”
It took a moment to turn, suggesting that Franks had covered a lot of ground since he’d left this spot. The Key stopped, pointing due west.
* * *
Franks had eluded them again.
This was beginning to frustrate Kurst.
He had begun their search where Myers had crashed. A pair of his brethren had been left to confirm the kill, only they had lost contact. By the time Kurst and the others had arrived, those two physical bodies had been burned to ash. The human overseer’s body had been mutilated. The trail of shell casings and blood told the story. Franks had been here.
Cratos had dived into the river and searched the submerged car. It had belonged to the MCB. Eight, who had been known in the before time as Thymos, had found the boat Franks had stolen downriver. Bia discovered the tire tracks of Myers’ rescuers and followed them back to the main road.
As ordered, Kurst had called in the information. Humans would be sent to gather evidence. Kurst suspected they would discover nothing of use.
He knelt next to the puddle of blood. The spray had kept it moist enough not to completely dry. Two mortals had bled here, but only one had perished. Curious. They had taken Myers’ corpse with them, whether to unnerve Stricken that his rival might still be alive or out of the strange human respect for their dead, he did not know, but Kurst could sense the lingering death in this spot.
Bia joined him at the riverbank. I know who Franks left with. I recognize his scent.
Kurst looked at her. How?
You never forget the man who killed you.
It was not the sort of thing they could reveal to Stricken, but the information could be of use. I will destroy Franks. You may have the humans.
The local authorities had not been here yet. No one lived close enough to have seen the fire through the trees and Myers’ car was completely submerged beneath the water. Kurst would be able to justify leaving the scene. They would keep moving, just as Franks had. They returned to the vehicle that they had taken from one of the Hunters at the shipyard. The Hunter had tried to stop them, but Cratos had casually broken his neck and tossed him in a dumpster. There had been no witnesses and in the confusion the humans would probably blame that murder on Franks as well.
Franks was picked up by MCB agents. They must have been following Myers to the rendezvous. They must have radioed Franks where to intercept our brethren. Franks knows MCB vehicles are tracked. He will get rid of it. They will have procured a new one.
Bia got on the radio. “November One Three requesting a GPS check on the closest MCB vehicles to our current position. Over.”
A moment later they got the response from STFU headquarters. “November One Three, there is an MCB unit three clicks west of you. Sending you the coordinates now.”
They reached the highway. The next available establishment was a gas station, convenience store, and fast food restaurant. Kurst knew that was the right place even before they received the address. Their stolen vehicle needed fuel anyway, so Kurst pulled in next to a gas pump. There was a red flash in his side mirror. The familiar face of a greater demon was watching him through the glass.
We must speak.
Very well. The horned red face faded. Kurst would go inside for this meeting. It would not surprise him to discover that Stricken was keeping an eye on them with that drone. Kurst got out of the SUV. Nearby humans were watching them curiously. Their advanced ceramic body armor was out of place. Kurst had not thought of that. He was still getting used to having a body, let alone thinking about what to cover it with.
Cratos and Bia went looking for the MCB car. Thymos tried to put gas into their vehicle, but was having some trouble operating the machine. Their educational bombardment had included basic familiarity with such things, but apparently this machine was different, and Thymos had not been on Earth long enough to do anything so mundane as pump gas.
“No. I do not desire a car wash, foolish computer. Dispense fuel!”
Across from them, a corpulent pig of a human was putting gas in his truck. He’d seen their odd manner of dress and was studying their vehicle. “Hey there. Going to a science fiction convention or something?”
“Or something,” Kurst stated.
“What’s PT stand for?”
“It stands for fuck off!” Thymos shouted as he punched the gas pump. The fat human turned his head in fear.
Kurst walked into the fast food restaurant. It was breakfast time. The few humans inside stopped shoveling processed dead animals into their wet face-holes long enough to glance at him, and then away, not paying any respect to their obvious better. They were weak and stupid. They had been granted the ultimate glory of a mortal body melded to an eternal intelligence and this was what they did with it? He hated them so much . . .
Once inside the bathroom, Kurst drew his combat knife, and began scratching the ancient symbol into the mirror over the sink. A human was standing at a stall. He flushed, saw Kurst vandalizing the glass, and fled without washing his hands.
When the symbol was in place, the ancient demon’s visage appeared. The wide, flat skull, thick curling horns, and razor-sharp teeth were impressive. Now that was a proper physical body. If Kurst’s body looked more like that, then the humans would know to grovel before him.
Greetings, General.
“What do you want?” Kurst snapped.
To offer you freedom from your servitude. My master has found a way to slip your captor’s bonds.
The demon was speaking of the device Stricken had implanted into all of the Nemesis prototypes’ heads. Kurst could feel it there, waiting. Once again, Kurst was a mere victim to a creator’s whims. The idea filled him with rage.
“How?” he demanded.
My master has drawn many to his flock. When the Dread Overlord was destroyed, he gained the fealty of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition. Their necromancers are artists in the sculpting of flesh. They developed a serum, distilled from the blood of vampires and lycanthropes, but their mortal bodies proved too weak to use it, and all who partook perished. For your mighty will, controlling it would be nothing. The toxins the albino has placed in you are designed to work against your current body. The Condition’s serum will enable you to change your physical body however you see fit.
There was a commotion inside the restaurant. Someone had begun screaming. There was a loud crash. He would have to make this quick. “This would give us the ability to shape-shift?”
Yes. You could become invincible. You would be immune to the albino’s poison. This serum can render your vessel into whatever form you desire.
Franks had his precious Elixir of Life to keep his body like that of the humans, but Franks had never suffered from too much imagination. Kurst liked the idea of twisting his form into something altogether better. “In return, you expect me to exchange one form of slavery for another?”
No. The master offers this to you as a Gift. The decision to join us and lead his army in the coming war remains yours to make.
A flame appeared on the bathroom wall. It burned through the tile, leaving a molten trail until it formed a circle. There was a flash of light, and the tile disappeared, leaving a dark portal to somewhere else. A vial dropped through the hole and fell into the sink. There was another flash and the portal was gone. Kurst picked up the vial of red, glowing liquid. The sludge crawled up the inside of the glass, as if seeking the warmth of his fingertips through its cage.
A single drop will be sufficient to purify your form. There is enough there for all of you who exist now and hundreds more to come.
“I accept this Gift.” Of course, he would test it on some of his brethren first.
The demon dipped his horned head. You are wise, General.
Kurst shattered the mirror with his fist, scattering the symbol.
Returning to the restaurant
, he found that Cratos and Bia had killed everyone inside. Bodies were strewn across the floor. One human had been tossed on the grill and it was creating an obnoxious smell. Stricken would not be pleased, and until Kurst knew whether this serum worked or not, that still mattered. “Why?”
Cratos pointed at a body he’d thrown through the cash register. “That one looked at me funny.”
“Because you took his breakfast burrito. Humans do not like that,” Bia said as she unscrewed the sound suppressor from her pistol and put it away. “We found the MCB car in the parking lot. There was no indication of where they would be going next.”
The large one was rummaging around behind the counter and held up a handful of the frivolous toys meant for the children’s meals. “Yay! Can I keep them, General?”
Kurst was frustrated by this development. It would take too much time to match up all the dead humans with which vehicle was missing. “No. In fact I should destroy you for your stupidity.”
“Sad . . .” Cratos put the toys back.
They walked outside. The corpulent human who had dared question them was curled up on the ground, in a spreading puddle of gasoline, trying to cover his eyes as Thymos sprayed him with the hose and screamed, “I will not be addressed by my inferiors!”
It is time to leave.
Thymos dropped the hose, but with the nozzle still running. The puddle expanded, growing toward the restaurant. They climbed in. Bia tossed a thermite grenade out the window as they drove off.
Cratos giggled. “Pretty sparkles!”
They were on the highway before the expanding fireball had been recorded by the aerial surveillance drone and the details relayed back to STFU headquarters. “November One Three. We’ve got an explosion near your position. Please confirm, over.”
“This is November One Three. Confirmed.”
“Task Force Actual wants to know if you have acquired the target?”
“Negative.” Kurst looked at his soldiers and frowned. It was doubtful Stricken would consider this a successful field test. So much for gaining more autonomy. “There was a complication.”
A new voice came on the radio. “Return to base immediately,” Stricken ordered.
Kurst felt the warning throb inside his skull. It let him know that failure to comply would result in immediate death. “Yes, sir, returning to base.”
He held up the red vial and studied the necromantic sludge in the sunlight. We will obey . . . For now.
* * *
I feel really hung over . . .
Tom Strayhorn woke up on a counter top. The piercing brightness burning his eyes was sunlight peeking through broken miniblinds. When the room stopped spinning he realized the place was a dump. The walls were covered in old water stains. The broken roof tiles were covered in mottled green bits of mold. Strayhorn tried to sit up, but his muscles didn’t want to work. He was numb and queasy.
“Don’t move.”
A gigantic shadow blocked the rays of sun. It was Agent Franks.
He was wearing a blood-splattered butcher’s apron and a surgical mask.
That was a rather unnerving sight to wake up to.
“Where are we?”
Franks had a small bottle in his hand. He stuck a syringe in it and withdrew some liquid. “An abandoned truck stop in West Virginia.”
He couldn’t remember anything after Dad’s death. The whole thing was like a really bad dream. “What happened?”
“I sedated you.” Franks stuck the needle in Strayhorn’s arm and depressed the plunger. “How do I have a kid?”
“Wait . . . Sedated me. Why?”
Franks scowled at him. He didn’t seem to like being interrupted or being asked questions, and Strayhorn had just done both. “The Elixir can heal most things.” There was a bag full of bloody surgical tools next to him on the counter. Franks picked up a mirror and angled it so Strayhorn could look down at his torso. His abdomen had been sliced open from one side to the other, and then roughly sewn shut with what had to be a hundred ugly stitches.
“Oh shit . . .”
“Your liver was ruined. I replaced it.”
“I got a liver transplant? By you?” He glanced around at the moldy, rotten, roach-infested truck stop. “Here?” Hopefully whatever Franks had just shot him with was antibiotics. “Wait . . . Who did the liver come from?”
“The STFU handler.” Franks shrugged. “You shot him in the mouth. Organs were still good . . . Don’t think he drank much. The Elixir will force it to work. Now shut up.”
Strayhorn did as he was told.
Franks pulled over a chair and sat down. The old thing creaked under his weight. Even sitting, Franks still seemed to tower over him. “Myers wouldn’t lie to me. How do I have a child?”
Strayhorn wasn’t sure how to answer that. Franks’ DNA was an ever-evolving conglomeration of his various parts. “You mean, like biologically? Well, you’ve got human parts . . .”
“It better be the anesthetic making you stupid.” Franks sighed. “Who is your real mother?”
Strayhorn told him.
“I see.” Franks slowly nodded. If he felt any emotion at all over that revelation, he kept it hidden.
Strayhorn had been waiting to meet his real father for a long time. This was very different from how he’d imagined it as a child. “She abandoned me when I was a baby.”
“Where is she now?”
“She killed herself.”
Franks showed absolutely no reaction.
“I bounced around a lot in foster care. I ran away a few times, lived on the street, got arrested and put back in the system. Then when I was a teenager, Dwayne Myers found me and gave me a home. . . .” Strayhorn tried to wipe the sudden tears from his eyes, but his arms still didn’t want to respond with enough coordination to do it. “He was a good man.”
“Yes. What did Myers tell you?”
“I didn’t find out about any of this until I was an adult. Growing up I just thought Dad was some sort of secret superspy. He never talked about what he did. We moved a lot. He’d get a call then disappear for weeks at a time. There were mysterious guys in suits showing up at all hours to bug him. That sort of thing. When I asked how come he’d found me, he’d said he’d known my real father, but he always talked about you like you were dead. He made up some bullshit story and I believed it. I grew up. Tried to play baseball, just like he did, but I wasn’t good at it. I joined the military, then the Marshal’s Service. I met my first monster before I ever knew about the MCB. Once I got recruited, imagine my surprise to find out my boring old foster father had been in charge of the whole damned thing. He never even so much as wrote me a letter of recommendation. Yeah, Dad really was that much of a hard-ass when it came to things being top secret. I never suspected what he really did until I was part of it.”
“OpSec,” Franks stated.
“Screw OpSec. I had to be cleared before I could know about my real father. Then he tells me it’s you and you’re not only still alive, you’re not even human.”
Franks gave a noncommittal grunt.
He was so incredibly sore that it hurt to talk, but it felt good to get the story out. “He warned me not to talk to you about it. I think he figured I would meet you, and that would be enough and I’d let it go. I think he was worried you’d freak out.”
“I do not freak out.”
“They said that about you. I didn’t just learn about monsters in the academy, but I’ve got my Dad telling me that I was part monster. The only reason I ever had the little, screwed-up family I did was because Myers took pity on me. He learned about me, and just in case I inherited some of your weirdness, he didn’t want me being summarily executed or scooped up by something like Unicorn. Once I knew who you were, I bugged him for a chance to be on your detail. Of course, this isn’t the reunion I always imagined growing up. Son of Frankenstein. Wow.”
Franks just shook his head.
This was really awkward. “I know, I know. Fictional doctor, not t
he . . . Monster? Creation? Sorry.”
Franks picked up a paper cup from the table. The glow told him it was the Elixir of Life. “How’d you know about this?”
“Car accident a few years back. I was brain dead and on a respirator. Dad figured it was worth a shot . . . He didn’t explain how I came out of the coma until I was in the MCB though . . .” Strayhorn chuckled. “When it came to secrecy the old man had such a stick up his ass that he was like a corndog with legs.”
“Heh . . .” Franks almost smiled.
He had to ask. “What happened with you and my real mother?”
“Classified.”
“Go to hell. Myers never told me. I want to know.”
Franks mulled it over. “She was a witness. I was ordered to intimidate her into silence. Instead, she . . . found comfort in my presence.”
“I bet you don’t get that much.”
“It is unusual, but has happened a few times before. We were together for a short time. Then she left in the middle of the night. I never saw her again.”
“Why’d she kill herself?”
Franks stared at him for a long time. “I don’t know.”
“Then guess.”
“She finally realized what I really was.” He stood up and pulled off the blood-covered apron. “Jefferson and Archer are outside. I’ll be in contact in a few days.” He began walking away.
“Wait? That’s it? Just like that you’re out of here?”
“Yes.” Franks tossed the bloody apron on the floor.
“I thought maybe you’d want to talk . . .”
Franks paused. “Why?”
Strayhorn didn’t really know what to say to that. “That’s what people do.”
“I am made of people . . . Do not mistake that for being one,” Franks said. “You wish to talk? I’ll talk. You’ll listen. Your existence is unexpected, but changes nothing. The mission comes first. Myers wanted you alive to testify, so that’s what you’ll do. Jefferson will gather agents who were loyal to Myers. I still have to destroy Nemesis. There is a type of magical device which can detect a demon’s location. I know where such a device is stored.”