Authors: Nick Kelly
The candles flickered, the result of movement, and Cat shifted, gripping the baton on his hip. A figure rose from behind the pulpit, its face shrouded in darkness, its silhouette backlit by the candles. When it spoke, its voice was clear, and human. “’And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying. Blessing and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.’”
Silence. This had to be the scientist responsible for the manic MetaHumans. There he stood. This was the one who had stolen Delambre’s work and offered a sick display of gratitude by creating an assassin in the image of his daughter. Cat knew not to approach. Something in the air was wrong, really wrong. Instead, he waited.
The figure stepped to the side of the pulpit, physically and figuratively looking down at Cat. “I expect an ‘Amen’ from the congregation.”
“How ‘bout a ‘choke on a corpse’s cock’, that close enough?”
The scientist paused. “’Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; For the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?’”
Cat took solace in the feel of the baton’s grip in his hand as he ventured a few slow steps forward. “Which part are you playin’, big brain? Coz from what I remember, the role yer quotin’ gets squashed by the Jesus a little later on in that tall tale.”
The scientist’s body language betrayed tension as Cat spoke, though his voice remained unchanged. “’Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne; and unto the Lamb.”
Cat didn’t recognize the verses, simply that they were verses, and that they represented the end of the world. What was that chapter…Resurrections? Reservations? Repercussions? Something like that.
“Wow, yer like a little plush toy. Do I hafta pull yer string ta get you to throw out useless quotes at me, or is that all natural?”
The scientist lost his composure then, smashing the wooden pulpit aside with both hands. “ENOUGH! You have claimed much of my dominion, but now, you shall taste failure. You shall taste enslavement. You will pray for death.”
Cat took a few more paces forward. “I’ve been prayin’ fer the ol’ dirt nap fer ten years, pops. I’d lay odds that you ain’t gonna be the one ta deliver.”
“Be cautious, defiler. My power is far greater than that which you will ever know…Catwalk.”
The scientist’s acknowledgment of his identity was no surprise. He had a slab with his face on it down below. “Really? Well, seein’ as how you ain’t got much left a’ yer biblical vision, I’d beg to differ.” The man stood hardly fifteen meters away. There he was. The psychopath who had led to so many lost lives…to Delambre’s death. Beneath it all, he was a raging lunatic, caught up in his own dementia. He was going to be fun to torture.
“You have NO idea at all, do you, Catwalk? Yes, I killed your noble partner. That was simply, as the Good Book says, ‘an eye for an eye’. You did, after all, ignite the right-hand man of one of my partners. Though, if you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here today, would we?”
Cat gritted his teeth. Comparing Delambre to Hitch was an insult. “Gonna find a victim fer every one a’ yer nightmarish creations I managed ta put in the ground, doc? That low-grade work you called Pestylynce? The marionette you called Famyne? That mosquito you called Angel? Face the facts, doc. Yer cancelled…out of biz…retired.”
“It’s true you managed to best my Horsemen. I had such visions of them, running throughout the city, instilling fear, the contagious chaos so welcome amongst the inhabitants of this neon-clad Babylon we’ve come to know.” The figure bowed his head, nodding slightly as he digested the facts. “That has nothing to do with my reason for calling you here, Catwalk. You are here because I chose to draw you to me.”
Cat didn’t answer, relying instead on a silent survey of the area.
“Don’t you see? You live because I choose to allow it. You stand, attached to those inhuman legs of yours, because I decide so. Every aspect of your existence is merely a thread that I command as I fancy. I control you. I own you.” His last words echoed with the chords reserved for poets and madmen.
“I am Messiah!”
“Tell yer story at the pearly gates, chitbag. I ain’t got the shockin’ time.” Cat strode forward, focused on ending any further actions by the scientist or whatever other beasts he’d dreamt up.
The confession booth exploded in a shower of wood and glass. Cat’s body slammed into the front pew. Messiah’s laughter echoed in his ears…
…until a metallic roar filled the room.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
With half-instinct, half-panic, Catwalk launched into the air. The results were less than stellar. The giant enemy missed taking his head off. It caught him in the midsection instead. The blow knocked him through the air like a rag doll. Cat toppled over the pews, landing in a heap against the far wall.
Consciousness moved from best friend to vague acquaintance. His head wavered between bright stars and pitch black. Breathing was a chore. Crushing pain filled his ribs. His left arm was completely numb. Cat tried to find oxygen and to digest exactly what the hell hit him.
The giant form barreled in his direction. Titan. Cat shifted, layering his body against the floor as if he was part of the tile. Shards of glass rained down on him as the Titan shattered the exterior wall of the Church. The reds, blues, and greens depicting the Stations of the Cross showered down. Without thinking, Cat rolled to his right and leapt over the wrecked pews. The beast brought its fists downward, crushing the stones where Cat had been.
Stars danced in his eyes. He was thankful for the mesh of the armor preventing a thousand cuts in his skin from the glass. The heat of the sun erupted in his chest as air returned to his lungs. He inhaled fire. It spread through his veins. It extended into his limbs, wrapping along his spine, and coursed along his artificial legs. He coughed loudly, his lungs bruised and burning from the beast’s attack. Cat slid to as much of a fighting stance as he could muster. His attacker rose to its full height in a display of fury.
The figure was immense, with shoulders flaring out nearly three meters. It flexed its enormous arms, either bicep as massive as Cat’s waist. Twisted spikes lined its shoulders and forearms, down to its burly fists. Centered between its broad shoulders, the beast had a head more reminiscent of a Minotaur than a human. Two large, chrome horns curved forward from its skeletal face. Its bottom jaw projected forward, setting its face deeply into its skull. As if in a haze of pure anger, the beast’s two red eyes glowed down on him. The Titan brought its hands back to the ground with a crash, pausing a moment before its next attack.
A familiar image was forged in its breastplate. Cat recognized the bizarre translation he’d first seen in the morgue. This was the improvement, the production model of the failed prototype.
Cat breathed its name, “Wahrr.”
Somewhere in the distance, the voice of Messiah prodded Catwalk with the annoyance of a fencer’s foil. “I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other.”
With the oxygen fresh in his veins, Cat bounded aside, avoiding the Horseman’s next attack. Pews splintered and hymnal pages fluttered into the air. Cat digested the scientist’s words. There was supposed to be an order, a specific procession to the horsemen. Cat smiled that he’d at least caused such a detour to his enemy’s plans. The giant swung a massive hand backward, cracking through the remnants of the confession booth. Could this thing be another MetaHuman, another half-breed?
Cat thought of Famyne, the being scarcely more than a skeleton, nothing human remaining, but a brain trapped in a living, moving scalpel. If that polished skeleton could have once been human…
His sympathy cost him as Wahrr caught him with a backhand. A human spine would have snapped in half. Cat crashed along the ground, taking a mental inventory of the damage as he struck the floor and rolled. The enormous beast rose again, throwing the wooden benches aside. Pages from the hymnals, musical professions of faith, flittered about in the air. Cat retreated, struggling to find a strategy.
His thoughts were stuck on the skeleton called Famyne. It died, graciously, as a result of the shotgun. Cat drew the sawed-off, searching for his target as he felt the inviting wood of its grip. He evaluated the position of the trigger, its weight when it was fully loaded with shells. The familiarity was comforting.
Cat reached to lift the barrel. His left arm failed. It was all the Titan needed. It struck him full in the chest. The shotgun disappeared near the back of the room. Cat bounded off of the floor. His body struck one of the support columns. He dropped to the ground. The iron taste of blood filled his nose and throat.
He heard the roar of the attacker, mingling with the nasal words of its director. “Then the Lord will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know the Messiah and to those who do not obey His gospel.”
Catwalk weighed his options. Could Messiah see in the dark? Could Wahrr? If they were able to activate low-light vision, then destroying the candles would be a worthless endeavor. The shotgun was now a lost treasure amidst the rubble. So far, he’d simply been helpless prey in the targets of the charging bull. It was exactly the perspective portrayed in Messiah’s words, in Wahrr’s actions.
Time to change the game.
The oversized MH wasted motion after motion to display its power. It shattered another window with the back of its metallic arm. It then brought its fist downward, destroying two pews. Gripping the baton, Cat leapt forward. Wahrr rose to its full height, crossing its spiked arms as a guard. Catwalk’s leap was nothing more than a feigned attack as he landed two full meters short of a frontal assault. The Titan uncrossed its arms. Too late. Cat rolled beneath its form, jamming the baton upward like a spear.
The baton struck home in the left thigh of the beast. Cat twisted his thumb, activating the EMP tip. Blue waves of lightning engulfed Wahrr, extending downward along the length of the baton. Catwalk dropped it, rolling to his feet and sprinting behind the giant. With its systems eliminated, it would be easy pickings. He adjusted his balance as the giant fell backwards, its left leg extended, rendered useless by the Electro-magnetic shock.
Cat reached the raised stage. Wahrr fell onto its back. The impact drove papers, dust, soot, and dirt into the air. He chanced a sideways glance to where he’d last seen Messiah, only to find the scientist gone. Near the pulpit, there was nothing but darkness. The baton was buried somewhere under the giant’s form. The shotgun was lost in the black near the room’s exit. The candles still clearly burned on the stage despite the new wind from the broken windows.
The air carried new words to his ears. “We eagerly wait for the Savior who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."
The words ended, and Cat shifted at the sound of metal on metal. “…transform our lowly body…” He was able to digest the changes to the MetaHuman near him before he realized they’d even happened. Wahrr’s armored forearms shifted open, two large auto-cannons replaced the spikes.
Wahrr rose on its one functional leg. Cat stared in disbelief. It had gone from brawler to arsenal at the command of its creator.
“Oh, you mother…” The audible click of loaded guns broke his blue streak.
He sprinted, not looking back. The artificial legs provided him with inhuman acceleration. His surgery provided greater speed, leaping distance and control than any purely natural human. Thanks be to whatever god was in his corner.
Cat landed with a thud on the far side of the stone altar. The scarlet and violet banners wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak. He pressed against the stone. He heard and felt the impact of the bullets against the stone. The goblet and bowl flew overhead, picked off by random rounds. A thousand angry hummingbirds buzzed in his ears. They gave way momentarily, replaced by a steady ringing. Suddenly, the gunfire started again.
Cat cowered beneath the shattering stone. “Focus, man. Find the reason you’re here.” He drew in as much breath as he could. What brought him here? The gunfire became distant, dream-like. The visions inside his head were far more emotional, far closer.
They’d died before him. Partners, co-workers, department personnel, most of them just part of the job. Others had become personal, so personal he was driven by an appetite for revenge, a need to destroy. That was what he wanted. He wanted it to be personal. He wanted Delambre’s death to devour him in flame the way others had in the past. Closing his eyes, he visualized the reason he had come. The result surprised him.
It wasn’t the geneticist’s death that inspired him. It was Eva’s.
“I’ll keep her safe, Delambre. I promise.” His words. His promise. His purpose.
The gunfire subsided. Cat leapt into action. Even auto-cannons required a re-load, and Cat had tried to keep as a count of how long the beast had been firing. He pictured Eva alive, by his side, safe. She was the greatest hope he had for survival. Failing now, even if the beast didn’t kill him, would mean death.
The red eyes of the giant beast turned to meet him.
Good boy. Eyes up. Let’s finish this.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Wahrr was a weapon of mass devastation. It was crowd control incarnate, fear among the masses, a terrorist attack on two hulking legs. It had already moved to protect itself when Cat had tried a frontal assault. He was willing to bet it would repeat that behavior.
Cat leapt directly at the oversized MH, landing short of its attack by design, instead seeking the coverage of the remaining pews. Wahrr growled. The vibrations whipped debris into the air. The pages of shredded books of worship covered the field of view. A fog of dreck filled the room. The two enemies were snow-blind in an array of fluttering hymns. Its red eyes never even saw Catwalk as he landed close enough to share a breath.