Authors: Ben Bequer
“I can kick it in,” I whispered back, but she placed her glowing hand on the door, melting the handle and lock without making a sound. I opened the door and rushed in. We had the schematic layout, we knew the place backwards and forwards, and we quickly scoured the first floor clean before climbing to the second floor and into the study, where we expected Shivvers to be. The study was empty, but well lit by an oil lamp.
“If he’s smart,” Influx said guarding the door, “he’s hiding in his room upstairs. Come on.”
I turned and found the book instantly; in the middle of a desk atop some papers. It was a simple leather-bound tome, almost ancient, with the words “notes” on the cover and nothing else. It was exactly as the one in Dr. Retcon’s study. I flipped to the first page and saw it was a direct continuation from the first book.
This is what Retcon wanted, why we had come, but then why was it sitting on Shivver’s desk, unless he knew we were coming for it?
“Influx, be-” I started but he was on her before I could finish, before I could draw an arrow.
Gentleman Shivvers pulled himself out of Influx’s shadow, peeling like a black sticker off the wall. He came out of the shadow, solidifying as he slipped his blade across Influx’s throat with a swift flourish of the wrist. Blood fountained from of her neck, spraying onto my face and chest. She looked at me, pleading, trying to control the flow with her hands as she slowly slipped to her knees.
Shivvers looked almost eighty, but he was faster than anyone I had ever seen. He was on top of me in an instant, slashing at my neck. I brought my shoulder and elbow up in defense, and felt his blade bite deep into my left deltoid. He pushed me back with more strength than I gave his frail body credit for, and switched a backhand grip on his blade, stabbing upwards at my left flank. I brought my right knee up, twisting away and caught him by surprise. The clumsy blow caught his midsection, more a product of his closing speed than any strength I put into it, but he doubled over giving me a split second to act. I followed up with a right elbow to his face that threw him back towards the door. He smashed into the wood and crumpled to the ground, dropping the dagger as he flailed about. The deadly weapon was only a few feet in front of him, still within reach.
I had a second, a second, to compose myself and nock an arrow.
He stopped moving, crumpled on the remains of the doorway, his eyes never wavering from me.
“Heal yourself,” I shouted at Influx, but while her hand glowed at her neck, the power wasn’t working. Blood seeped through her fingers, and flowed out of her mouth and nose like a gusher. Her strength was quickly leaving her, and I could do nothing to help.
Across the room, Shivvers came to his feet. “The wounds from this dagger will not heal,” he said. “Not for a day.”
“Influx!” I shouted, pulling the arrow back, aiming it at Shivver’s chest.
He smiled, intoning each word slowly; “She is dead. And you are next.”
She gurgled my name, losing her fight to stem the blood flow that stained her chest and abdomen. Tears streamed her face as she realized that death was only a few moments away. The world fading to her, Influx doubled over.
“Motherfucker,” I drew the bow’s string back to its maximum tension. I didn’t know what to do. The only thing keeping Shivvers from picking up the dagger and attacking me was my bow and arrow, but I had to drop them if I intended to help Influx. I thought to fire, but he moved like a shadowy blur, and in an instant, he was back beside the door. He held up the dagger waving it with menace as it dripped her blood.
“Time to say goodbye,” he taunted, motioning to her and drawing my attention away from him momentarily.
Influx dropped prone to the floor in a pool of her own blood. Her legs twitched twice and then she was still. “Influx!”
“It’s inevitable,” Shivvers said, a fiendish smile crossing his face.
“This arrow has a nuclear payload,” I growled.
“You joke,” he scoffed, but his eyes were on the head of the arrow aimed at him. It was tipped by a bulbous and mechanical arrow head with a green LED light blinked every second.
I shook my head. “I let go and they’ll see the flames in downtown Dresden.”
“Why would you kill yourself? It makes no sense.”
His confusion gave him a moment’s pause, and that was my opportunity.
I fired.
The arrow caught him in the chest, above the heart, tearing into his aorta. Shivvers collapsed back and fell into the wall, clasping the arrow shaft sticking out of his chest.
The arrow head’s payload wasn’t the Nuke, but a gas grenade. My massive strength, combined with the force of the modified bow powered the blunt arrow through his sternum so the gas payload never deployed. He looked up at me, confused that we weren’t bathing in a nuclear fire. A smile came over his face as he realized I had lied to him.
I ignored him as he faded, and moved over to Influx. Turning her over, I saw her pale face, lifeless eyes and the horrible bloody wound at her neck.
She was dead.
* * *
I left Shivvers’ house carrying Influx’s body, the stupid book jammed in my belt. Haha and Zundergrub had run to the house from their vantage point and came up to me.
“Dear God,” the doctor muttered upon seeing the gaping wound on her neck.
“Don’t say a fucking thing!” I yelled at Mr. Haha and placed her body gently on the snow. I took her lifeless wrist and unsnapped her comlink. “Dust off on our new location. Do you have me?”
“Roger that,” the pilot responded. “Reading your new location on GPS. Inbound in 2 minutes.”
“Just fucking hurry,” I roared and threw the comlink away.
Mr. Haha knelt next to her and placed his hands on her chest. His robotic hovering cameras and lights circled him like satellites, jousting each other for the best angle.
The rabbit-headed robot said, “In heavy mood their misery moaned they, their master’s death.”
“Stop that,” I said. “And turn those fucking things off before I break your fucking face off.”
“We should start a balefire” the robot continued, ignoring my threats. “To honor our fallen leader.”
“Do you have the item?” Dr. Zundergrub asked, ever to the point. I took the book from my waistband and threw it at his chest. He caught it and paged through it, not understanding what was in it.
“What happened?” he asked.
I shook my head and looked back to the house. “Mr. Haha, do you still have access to the network?”
“Indeed, I do.”
“Delete everything. Crash the whole fucking thing.”
“Answer me,” Zundergrub.
I stared him down. He was a small man, though next to me most men were, but he didn’t back down from my glare.
“Shivvers ambushed us.”
“Accessing the hard drives,” Mr. Haha said aloud.
In the distance, we could hear the whine of the helicopter engines as our ride approached.
“How could he harm her?”
I turned to spot the helicopter, which was nearing quickly as it came over the forest line.
“Deleting drives,” Mr. Haha said. “Check that, reformatting for true deletion.”
“I don’t need a fucking play-by-play, Haha,” I snapped at the robot. “And Shivvers had a special weapon.” I showed him the still bleeding wound on my shoulder. The back of my shirt was caked with dark crimson.
“Most interesting,” Zundergrub said, taking a few steps towards the house. “You must have left some forensic evidence behind. Blood or-”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said.
The helicopter circled overhead and started to land in a nearby flat area, about fifty feet away.
I picked up Influx and started to the landing chopper.
“You done yet?” I asked Haha.
“Done. The entire system is crashed without a trace of us ever being here.”
“Then let’s get out of here,” I strode away towards the helicopter, not even bothering to lower my head to avoid the propellers, nor cover my face from the tornado of snow lifted up by the blades. Hopping aboard, I placed her body on the floor of the helicopter in front of the shocked co-pilot. “Do you have a tarp, or-”
He nodded and dug into a crate, pulling out a blue tarp and handed it to me. I spread it along the floor, fighting the wind kicked up by the helicopter’s rotors and placed her atop the tarp. Mr. Haha came in and stood next to me.
“We should bind that,” he said and ripped a swath of his dirty kimono, wrapping it around my shoulder. When he was done, I knelt down and finish covering Influx’s corpse. I closed the tarp around her upper body, leaving only her face uncovered. Her eyes were open, her jaw and mouth caked with blood. I used a corner of the tarp to wipe some off, but it smeared along her cheek further marring her beautiful face.
It was peculiar because he had use a similar amount of force against me and my wound was a scratch compared to hers. Somehow my skin was stronger than Influx’ and I was able to withstand his attacks. If Shivvers had attacked me first, Influx would still be alive.
I had almost finished shrouding Influx’s corpse when I noticed we weren’t in the air yet
“Why the fuck are we not in the air?” I raged.
“We’re waiting for Zundergrub,” Haha answered. “There he comes.”
I stared out of the cabin, back to the house, and saw Zundergrub walking towards the helicopter slowly.
“Hurry, damn you!”
The doctor didn’t, ignoring me as he came onboard. His imps were flocking around him, like a pack of dogs wanting a treat from their master.
“Get us out of here,” I yelled at the co-pilot who repeated my command into his headset and ran into the cockpit. The engines roared and the vehicle slowly lifted off the snow in a cloud of whiteness.
“We should leave it,” Zundergrub said with disgust, referring to Influx’s body as one would that of a dead animal on the side of the road.
I exploded, not caring whether he was inciting me or not, and stormed across the helicopter. I grabbed Zundergrub and slammed him into the cabin, bending the aluminum bracing. He yelped in pain and clawed at me but I pressed his thin frame farther into the wall.
“Why don’t we fucking leave you?” I snarled into his face. “You useless fucking piece of shit. I ought to-“
“Blackjack, he didn’t mean to insult,” Haha said trying to intercede, but nothing could tear me off Zundergrub.
“Nobody touches her,” I said. “You understand? No one touches her body.”
“No one is going to touch her.” Haha gently pulled me away from the doctor. “Right?” he motioned to Zundergrub, who wasn’t moving, even to straighten his rumpled clothing. He slowly slinked down to the seating.
I knelt beside Influx and finished wrapping her exposed legs with the blue tarp.
“I’m closing the door,” Haha shouted over the roar of the engines.
“Not yet,” I said, leaving her body and moving to the open door.
“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,” he began.
I waited until the helicopter was high enough off the ground to have cleared the ground clutter and took out one of my last two remaining explosive arrows. I knocked it, aiming at Shivver’s house.
“Thus unlamented let me die,” Haha continued.
Releasing the string, the arrow flew the distance between the rising helicopter and the house in an instant and exploded, blowing the house to a million bits of concrete, dry wall and tile, illuminating the forest. Flames erupted at the base of the first floor, beginning to spread as the house disappeared behind the hillside.
“Steal from the world, and not a stone tell where I lie,” Haha finished.
* * *
I sat on the deck beside her covered body as the helicopter carried us away. Mr. Haha would occasionally try to re-eulogize but I wasn’t in the mood for Alexander Pope’s or anyone else’s words to comfort my grief.
Frankly, I couldn’t believe it.
We’d seen her stand up to Captain Miraculous, a Class-A super, and probably the most powerful guy west of the Mississippi and his healer wife, Bad Karma. She stood toe to toe and was winning when Cool Hand half-cracked Karma’s head open. It made no sense for her to fall to the hand of some old guy with a magical dagger. It just wasn’t fair.
Then to have Zundergrub dismiss her, talk of leaving her body behind was too much for me. I didn’t even dare look in his direction, in fear that he would make a face or say something that would set me off. It was a long way down.
I didn’t have much time to think about it. I could hear the whine of the helicopter turbines growing stronger and stronger and felt a strong bank to the port side. The chopper then rolled hard in the opposite direction and I knew something was wrong.
“That’s peculiar,” Haha said.
I got up and walked over to the cockpit, sliding the door open to reveal the pilots.
“What’s going on?”
The co-pilot looked at me and I could tell from the expression his face we had trouble.
“We’re being followed,” he told me, and I looked over at the 3d radar holo projection in between the two pilots and saw three red dots to our rear, and coming fast.