Bad Grace (Watcher Chronicles Book 1) (17 page)

She was sitting in the front passenger seat when he got in, just after he put the Saigan-12 in the trunk. “You have any weapons?” Frank asked her.

“No,” she replied. “I left the Facility in a hurry, remember. Why?”

“Where we’re going, you’ll need weapons. I have two Glocks in the trunk. You like Glocks, right?” He started the Chevy and drove down the narrow road that cut through the forest.

“Actually, I prefer Berettas. Where are we going?”

When he drove onto the mountain road, he spotted a car parked near the trees. He hit the brakes.

“Relax,” Michelle said. “I parked that there. Didn’t want to spook you by driving up.”

The car was a beat up old Ford. “Not a company car, I take it?” He put the Chevy in gear and drove on down the mountain road.

“I stole it to get here.”

Resourceful, Frank thought. He was starting to like the girl more and more. She was obviously a dedicated soldier until Leland screwed her along with the rest. She had her father’s inner-strength. It positively radiated off her. When she asked again where they were going, her tone making it clear she wouldn’t enjoy asking again, Frank told her all about Krakus and his gang of minions, about the soul stealing ritual and about how Leland supplied Krakus with the archangel feather to enact the ritual. Some of that she already knew from what she heard at the Facility. She also knew about Leland’s request to have the feather brought to him. Frank didn’t mention his own interest in the feather. As far as Michelle was concerned, they were going to stop the demons in possession of the feather, nothing more.

You’re using this girl, Frank. Pulling her into this quest for redemption you’re so hell bent on. You’ll get her killed, like you got Jack and Tyreese killed.

“Are you alright?” Michelle asked. “Why are you so tense all of a sudden? You’re making me nervous.”

Frank took a breath and forced himself to relax a bit. “Sorry. Still trying to process your father dying, and my friend Tyreese.”

Michelle was quiet for a moment, then she said, “I haven’t had time to process anything. Nothing makes sense to me anymore.”

It was the first time Frank had seen her look vulnerable, her hard exterior collapsing in on itself for a moment, but then she let out a short breath and sat upright in her seat. The mask of unflappable coolness was back on her face. “What’s your plan when we get to this factory?” she asked. “If we even get there at all. The city has gotten worse. Soldiers are on the streets now, trying to control things.”

“They won’t,” Frank said. “They have no idea what they’re up against.”

“Maybe not, but they are going to make it hard for us to travel through the city. There are roadblocks everywhere. I barely made it out to drive up here.”

“The warehouse district is out of the way. There shouldn’t be much activity around it. We go as far as we can, then we walk if we have to.”

The city was coming into view as he drove and he could see multiple plumes of dark smoke rising from some of the buildings around the city. The black sky above was full of roiling gray clouds. A sky like that shouldn’t have been present in the middle of August. It was almost like some dark force was gathering over the city, preparing to descend. He was so intent on staring at the city beyond that he almost didn’t see the large green truck parked horizontally across the road. Only Michelle shouting his name made him instinctively hit the brakes, bring the car to a skidding halt just inches away from the truck. “Is that a damn army truck?” he asked when his heart rate had slowed down.

“Yes,” Michelle said, already getting out of the car.

“Shit.” He didn’t have time for this. Krakus would be doing the ritual now and he needed to get there before he did another disappearing act with the feather. Nonetheless, he got out of the car after Michelle, who was already around the other side of the truck.

“Frank,” she called. “You need to see this.”

Frank took out his Beretta as he walked around the other side of the truck. He stopped dead when he saw the three bodies lying side by side in the middle of the road. “Jesus. Have they all been skinned?”

“Seems that way,” Michelle said, looking around. “They were obviously soldiers manning this roadblock. What do you think did this to him?”

Frank puffed his cheeks out and shook his head. “Some sadistic bastard, that’s for sure. I don’t know, maybe demons. Doesn’t matter anyway. They’re dead.”

Michelle nodded. “Let me check the truck for weapons. I’d feel more comfortable with something heavier than a Glock.”

Frank admired the fact that she barely flinched at the sight of the three skinned soldiers. As she climbed into the back of the army truck, he wondered how much field experience she had. To watch her, the assured way in which she moved, the way she kept herself together, her clear headedness, Frank thought she had enough.

Suddenly he felt almost responsible for the girl. She was Jack’s daughter, after all. Jack would want him to keep his daughter safe. Frank doubted Jack would be too happy about him dragging his daughter along on some personal mission that held a high likelihood that she might get killed, along with him. Frank knew the risks involved in taking on a demon as powerful as Krakus, but the fact was he didn’t have a choice, not as he saw it anyway. Saving the city probably should have been at the top of his agenda, but what felt more important to him was bringing Rachel back. Saving a city that barely deserved to be saved wouldn’t make things better for him. Only saving Rachel would. Selfish or not, that’s the way things were and nothing was going to change that.

Michelle jumped out of the back of the truck with an M16 assault rifle in her hands. Frank watched as she pulled out the magazine to check it. “Not iron tips, but they’ll do,” she said, slamming the clip back into place. “You ready to move again?”

Frank was looking at the truck. “You see any uniforms in the back of there?”

“Maybe a couple of jackets. Why?”

“Grab them. We’re taking the truck.”

Michelle smiled, then nodded. “I’ll go get them.”

A few moments later they each had one of the army issue jackets on and Frank was driving the truck towards the city. “I doubt they’ll look at us too hard,” Frank said as he got used to steering the big truck. “They’ll have their hands full no doubt. We should get through the checkpoints okay.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Let’s hope we do.”

“Why is this mission so important to you, Frank?” Michelle asked, the jacket she wore a tad too big on her. “I mean, shouldn’t we be breaking into the Facility to try and stop Leland?”

Yeah, Frank. Shouldn’t you?

“We’ll get to that,” Frank said, his eyes on the road as he negotiated a slew of abandoned cars. The doors were wide open on most of them, almost like something had dragged the occupants out in a hurry.

“I don’t like being kept in the dark. I’ve been honest with you so far. The least you could do is be the same.”

A pang of shame and guilt hit Frank. She was right, of course. She had been on the level since they met earlier. “I’ll admit, this is personal. You don’t have to come along. I can drop you off.” He slowed the truck down to a stop and waited.

Michelle stared at him for a moment, then looked out the window at the city beyond, the city about to fall into ruin. “My father always told me I could trust you, Frank,” she said. “He told me to go to you if I was ever desperate for help, to tell you everything.” She turned to him again. “Whatever this is, I’m sure to you it’s worth it. Let’s just get it done so we can save this city.”

“I admire your confidence,” he said. “When this is all over, I’ll buy you a drink and tell you everything. I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Frank started driving towards the city again.

CHAPTER 25

It didn’t take them long to encounter another roadblock. This time the soldiers manning the roadblock were all very much alive. Barriers were erected across the road, the other side of which was more abandoned cars, most of which had been pushed to the side of the road to clear a path for the military vehicles parked by the checkpoint. As Frank slowed the truck to a stop, he counted three soldiers standing by the barriers and another two near the middle of the road. The two soldiers split off as Frank brought the truck to a stop, one going to the side of the vehicle. Frank rolled down the window. “Hey,” he said to the soldier, a young looking guy, clean shaven and bulky under his combat fatigues. “We got orders to transfer supplies to the other side of the city.”

The soldier frowned. “I just got orders five minutes ago to hold fast at the checkpoints. No movement inside the city.”

Strange, Frank thought. Why aren’t the military in there trying to sort out the chaos? Unless Leland and his cohorts have somehow managed to sway the military as well, which wouldn’t have surprised Frank. Leland certainly had the influence. “We got different orders,” Frank said.

“Orders from whom?” the soldier asked, looking across at Michelle. The soldier wasn’t stupid. Frank knew by the look on the guy's face that he thought something wasn’t right about the man and the woman in the truck.

“Hey,” Frank said, raising his hands. “Just move the barriers, will you? It’s been a long night. Lot of crazy stuff happening out there, you know?”

“Yeah,” the soldier said, raising his weapon slightly. “Crazy stuff. What unit you from?”

“Unit?” Frank had no idea what to say to that. He shook his head, looked straight out the window, got ready to gun the truck forward and smash through the barriers ahead.

Then Michelle spoke. “Hey,” she said to the soldier as she leaned across towards Frank. When the soldier looked at her, Michelle’s gaze seemed to intensify and Frank frowned at her, wondering what the hell she was doing. She spoke slowly, deliberately. “Wave to your men and tell them to move the barriers. Everything is fine. We’re just two fellow soldiers carrying out orders. There’s no problem here.
There is no problem here
.”

The soldier frowned slightly, looked almost confused for a second, then he nodded and signaled to the other soldiers to pull the barriers out of the way, which they did immediately. “No problem here,” the soldier said, smiling at Michelle. “Move out.”

Frank was staring at the soldier when Michelle punched him on the leg. “You heard the man. Move out.”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “Sure. Move out.” He put the truck in gear and drove past the other soldiers. When he got past them, he looked in the side mirror and saw the soldier he’d been talking to still standing in the road, staring after the truck.

Michelle sat casually in her seat, looking out the windshield.

“What was that weirdness?” Frank asked. “Was that mind control?”

“Training at the Facility has advanced since your day,” she said. “Grace training includes mind control techniques now, as well as telekinesis, pyro kinesis, teleportation and lots of other wild stuff. None of it is perfected yet, not by a long shot, but the basics are there.”

“Lots of us have tried that stuff before. We could never get it to work. Thought only the demons had those powers.”

“They work if you bring science into it. Some of us were injected with a new serum that facilitates greater use of our powers. Even so, it takes a lot of practice. I’ll teach you—” She stopped dead as soon as Frank drove the truck around a corner.

“What the fuck?” Frank said and slammed on the breaks. Just yards away from the truck there was a huge crowd of people, scores of them, and they all looked to be fighting one another. Frank had never seen anything like it. Everyone on the street either had weapons of some kind, or were using their bare hands to try and kill the nearest person to them. Michelle and Frank could only watch as people got brutally stabbed, bludgeoned with metal bars and hammers, got punched to death, kicked to death, had their eyes gouged out with fingers and thumbs, had lumps bitten out of them. The worst part of it all was that everyone involved seemed to be in the grip of some violent rage. Their faces were so contorted by anger, hatred and aggression that they each looked hideous, monstrous. Even the ones who were getting killed still maintained their look of pure violent rage right to the end.

“Fucking go back, Frank!” Michelle said.

He couldn’t help being shaken up by the intensity of the horrific violence in front of him. That, coupled with the fact that he was unfamiliar with driving the army truck, made his hand fumble for and then slip of the gear stick as he went to put the truck in reverse. “Shit!”

By the time he was able to grip the gear stick again, it was too late. The crowd had noticed them and at least a dozen of them broke away and charged like mad dogs towards the truck. “Frank!” Michelle shouted. “Get us to fuck out of here please!”

“I’m trying!” He finally got the gear stick into the proper position, but by then three of the crazy people were on the bonnet of the truck. One of them managed to punch through the windshield like it wasn’t even there.

Michelle didn’t hesitate. She raised the M16 and fired a single shot at the heavyset man who had punched through the glass. The shot hit the man in the leg and he went tumbling of the truck onto the road. The other two people, a man and woman, started battering at the windshield, trying to break it in.

Then something thudded against the door on Frank’s side. It was another crazy from the street. The man was slavering as he punched at the window, finally shattering the glass. Before Frank could get to his gun, the man was clawing at Frank, trying to insert himself into the truck. Frank punched the guy in the face, the punch loaded with bad grace, and the guy went flying back onto the road, bouncing back to his feet almost immediately.

What the fuck? Frank thought. What’s wrong with these people?

Within seconds the truck was surrounded by the crowd outside as they swarmed around it like a pack of rabid dogs, snarling and eager to get at Frank and Michelle to rip them apart it seemed.

Michelle was shooting through the by now caved in windshield. Frank had his Beretta out and was firing at people who were trying to rip the door of the truck. Some of the crazies stayed down after getting shot, but most didn’t. Most of them came running back like nothing had happened.