Brothers of Chaos (The Unstoppable Titans Book 1) (17 page)

Owen and
Chris ran in and slammed the door behind them. They were pale and sweaty and
covered with something red. Owen ran to the nearest trashcan and threw up in
it. Chris collapsed next to the couch, looking at the floor.

“What’s
wrong?” Daniel asked him.

Chris didn’t
answer. He didn’t even acknowledge Daniel. And then Daniel noticed Alyssa had
not come in with them. He turned desperately to Owen.

“What
happened? Where’s Alyssa?”

Owen turned
his pale, sweaty face to Daniel and shook his head. Daniel looked back to
Chris.

“No.” That
was all Daniel could manage. He felt like throwing up, too. He stood up and
hobbled over to Chris, picking him up off of the floor. “What happened?” he
asked Chris.

“He killed
her,” Chris said, his voice monotonous.

Silence
unlike anything Daniel had ever experienced overcame him. It was as if he’d
gone deaf. “Who?” he asked, though he could barely hear himself. “Eric?”

Chris shook
his head and collapsed on the couch. “Someone else working with Eric.”

Daniel could
feel tears coming but he would not let them. Holding them at bay hurt his eyes.
“Who?”

“I don’t
know who,” Chris whispered. “It must have been the guy the shape-shifter warned
me about.”

Daniel was
barely listening anymore. All he could think of was what Alyssa had kept
saying, about how she felt something bad was going to happen to her.

And then it
suddenly sunk in—she was gone, she was dead. He looked Owen and Chris up and
down, noticing the red stuff splattered all over their faces.

“How did she
die?” Daniel found himself asking.

Owen just
shook his head. Chris, however, said, “This guy … threw her against a wall.”

Daniel
nearly collapsed. The tears started to flow now, but he didn’t feel as if he
were crying. It felt more like he’d simply sprung a leak. He didn’t really feel
any emotion at that point; he was numb.

“He had red
hair,” Owen suddenly said.

This jerked
Daniel out of his stupor. “Red hair?”

“Yeah.”

“I saw a guy
at the party with red hair.”

“I know. I
saw him there, too. Do you know his name?” Owen asked.

“Michael.”

Suddenly
Owen headed for the front door.

“Where are
you going?” Chris yelled.

“I’m going
back to make sure he’s dead.” He paused, and then added, “And to get Alyssa’s
body.”

He was out
the door before anyone could protest.

*
 
*
 
*

The shape-shifter
couldn’t move. Having heard (and felt) an explosion only moments ago, it lay in
the alley, too afraid to do anything. It was completely blind now, due to the
arrow that had pierced its other eye.

How could
things have gone so wrong? The creature, having tasted the blood of the one
known as Chris, had figured he’d bring along what he called “trackers” to try
and keep tabs on it, so it had allowed him the opportunity by leaving its glass
of water vulnerable on the table at the diner.

Then it lay
in the dumpster, waiting for the monster hunters to discover it, giving Michael
the chance to catch them off-guard. It all seemed to work out just fine. Its
decision to transform into someone other than Stephanie had been necessary—now
that she was in the hospital, it was too risky, much like with Eric, to walk
around in her image.

Luckily
there had been a few passed-out partygoers left at David’s party, one of them
an attractive girl. For some reason, Michael had ordered the shape-shifter not
to drain the poor girl completely, so the creature had only gotten enough of
her DNA to transform temporarily. After it had worn off, the monster had
decided to turn back into Eric since that was the form it was so accustomed to.
Plus, it seemed like a dramatically appropriate form to take when it killed
Owen.

Then it
waited.

And now it
heard footsteps approaching. It started to shake. The shape-shifter had never
before felt fear, but this had to be what it was overcoming its senses.

“It’s all
right,” said a familiar voice. “It’s just me.”

It was
Michael. Now the shape-shifter could feel a hand pressed against its shoulder.
It was comforting.

“They got
away,” Michael continued, “but it wasn’t your fault. I want to thank you.”

“What am I?”
the shape-shifter heard itself ask.

There was
silence for a moment, and then Michael exhaled. “You’re not from this world.
You were being used for something, you and the others.”

“For what?”

“Your venom,
my friend. To power my orb.”

Before it
could ask “What orb?” it felt Michael’s hand leave its shoulder. Suddenly the
shape-shifter felt a sharp pain in its chest just over its heart, as if an
arrow was stabbing it.

And then it
felt nothing at all.

*
 
*
 
*

Owen stood
on the roof of a building near the alley where Alyssa had lost her life. There
were a few cops crowding around her SUV, talking among themselves and keeping
pedestrians away.

He jumped to
the next roof, closer to the scene. As far as he could see, there were no
bodies recovered from the alley. None whatsoever.

Seeing the
charred SUV made Owen’s heart race. He had done that. He still didn’t
understand how he managed to throw the vehicle. He only remembered being so
enraged by what the stranger had done to Alyssa. The rage had caused him to
grab the first thing he saw, no matter what it was, and hurl it toward the
alley.

Owen hadn’t
even realized how impossible his actions had been until after the explosion.
The look on Chris’s face had scared him into realizing what he had done wasn’t
normal.

Where did
that power come from?

Who was Michael?
Had they spoken before? Did that monster really know where Owen’s mother was?

There were
too many questions he wanted answered.

Chris drove down some highway
Owen didn’t recognize; the buildings slowly disappeared, making way into dark
country. Owen just looked out the window, taking in the sights—or lack thereof.
He’d grown up in the country, so he should’ve been used to the lonely quietness
of it, but he’d spent the last two years in the city, so this all felt alien to
him now.

He could
just barely make out the trees against the moonlit sky. It was an eerie and
lonely sight. He quickly wiped away a tear from his eye and hoped Chris hadn’t
noticed.

Owen’s
thoughts dwelled on Alyssa. She would never see these trees, or the moon, or
animals, or anything ever again. He still couldn’t believe what had happened to
her. He didn’t want to believe. No one deserved to die like that.

Of course,
it was hard to think of Alyssa and not also think of Michael. Owen wasn’t sure
what he would do when he got his hands on him again. He didn’t care how strong
and inhuman Michael was; Owen knew he was stronger than most people and if
there was anyone who could stand up to Michael, it was him.

“Are you
hot?” Chris asked him, but he couldn’t muster enough energy to answer.

He grew
gradually colder and assumed Chris had turned on the air conditioner. After a
few minutes, Owen could see his breath fogging the window on which he rested
his head. The images outside of the window were getting harder to see now; it gave
the woods an even dreamier appearance. He wished all of this were a dream. That
way, his dad would still be here with him, Alyssa would still be alive, and
there would be no Michael. He had told Chris and Daniel no bodies had been
recovered from the alley. That had to mean Michael was still alive and had
taken Alyssa’s body with him.

“We’re
almost there,” he heard Chris say.

He had no
idea who Nikki was, but they were going to see her anyway. Chris had only
spoken of her once before. He had said she was someone he’d met a short while
before meeting Owen. He said she “knew things,” things no one else knew. Owen
couldn’t even guess what that meant and wondered why Chris had never introduced
him to her before.

They were
only twenty minutes away from the condo. Owen wished Daniel had come with them;
he didn’t like the idea of Daniel by himself with Michael on the loose. But
Daniel insisted on staying behind to work on D-18; with the robot in working
order, it would make a welcomed addition to their fight. That was the only
reason Chris and Owen had agreed to let him stay behind.

Trees turned
into old dilapidated buildings. Owen looked around; he hadn’t even realized
they weren’t on the highway anymore. He looked for the nearest street sign:
Lorenzo Street.

“Where are
we?” he asked Chris.

“A little
town called Baker.”

Owen looked
around again. The town seemed dead. Chris kept driving, passing every building
in sight. Finally they came to what looked like the edge of town, where a
wooded area loomed. Chris parked the car and turned off the engine.

“We have to
walk from here,” he said.

They got out
and started down a dirt path that led deeper into the woods. Owen grew nervous.
The moonlight barely penetrated the thick canopy of trees. He walked slowly
because he couldn’t see where he was going. Chris, on the other hand, walked
with confidence, as if he’d walked this path many times before.

After
several minutes, they were still walking. Owen started to wonder if Chris even
knew where they were.

“Are we
lost?” Owen finally asked.

“No, but I
don’t blame you for asking. They’re supposed to be hard to find.”

“They?” Owen
asked. “I thought it was just Nikki.”

After
several more minutes, they finally came to a clearing, and what Owen saw made
his jaw drop. What lay before them was what looked like an old amusement park.
There was a box office in the front with a clown painted on it.

“You have
any cash on you?” Chris asked Owen.

“What the
hell for?”

“We have to
pay to get in.”

Owen
couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He looked around the amusement park.
There were only a few buildings, and most were dirty with broken windows. He
could see a Ferris wheel in the center of the park. He pulled out his wallet
and gave Chris a ten.

“Don’t be
cheap,” Chris said, gawking at the money Owen had given him.

Owen handed
him more. He was about to jokingly ask on what Chris had wasted the allowance
Alyssa had given him, but didn’t think his heart could take any more pain.
Chris approached the box office slowly, and a slot in the window opened. A
long, pale hand reached out. Chris, appearing apprehensive, reached out with
the money as if waiting for the hand to take it. And it did. The money was gone
in a flash as the hand forcefully snatched it out of Chris’s.

He jumped
back in fear. “I hate when he does that,” he said to Owen.

“Who?”

“There’s
something I have to tell you about Nikki and her … friend,” Chris explained as
they entered the park, hopping over the turnstile next to the box office. “His
name is Darlington. He’s a bit … strange-looking. Nikki says it’s a birth
defect. So, if we meet him, don’t stare.”

Owen looked
back to the box office and said, “Was that him?”

“Yes.”

They
approached a small building to their immediate right. It looked like a gift
shop. They walked in. It wasn’t as dark as Owen had expected; candles were lit
and placed all over the main entrance. A room with a thick, purple curtain was
directly in front of them.

“Wait your
turn!” a voice said from the corner, making Owen nearly jump out of his skin.

There were
two girls in the corner: One had jet-black hair and wore a black tube-top with
a purple skirt. The other was the complete opposite—blond hair, white tube-top
and pink shorts. She reminded Owen of a cheerleader. But the two girls appeared
to be friends.

“Who are
they?” Owen asked Chris.

“People come
here to have their fortunes read.”

“Nikki’s a
psychic?”

“Sort of,”
Chris said with a snort. “But don’t call her that to her face. She hates that.
She doesn’t believe in psychics.”

Owen and
Chris sat down on the floor. Someone came out of the room, pushing the thick
purple curtain out of the way. It was a dark-haired boy in his late twenties.
He was wiping away tears.

The two
girls looked at each other apprehensively. They argued about who should go
first, and then decided to go together. Owen watched as they entered the room
through the curtain. As it flapped back into place, he could see a young
strawberry-blond woman sitting in a big oval-shaped chair. Just before the
curtain stopped flapping, she gave him a quick glance.

“Don’t
peek,” Chris warned. “She hates that, too.”

Owen faced
forward again, watching the previous customer walk out of the building. He was
still crying.

“Hey,” Owen
said the man. “What happened in there?”

The man
stopped crying instantly and stared blankly at Owen and Chris. “This is your
first time here, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Owen
replied.

“For him,
not me,” Chris added.

“Here’s some
advice: Be prepared for anything. She may tell you stuff you don’t want to
hear.”

And he was
out the door before Owen could say anything else.

For ten
minutes, Owen and Chris continued to sit in the candle-lit foyer; a few of the
candles had gone out, and it grew colder. Chris gripped his hoodie tighter; he
was shivering.

“Are you all
right?” Owen asked.

“Yeah. I
feel like crap, but I’ll live.”

Another ten
minutes went by. Owen suddenly realized he couldn’t hear anything that was
going on inside the reading room, despite the fact only a measly curtain
separated them.

“Do they go
to a different room or something?” he asked Chris.

“No. They’re
in there.”

“How come I
can’t hear what they’re saying?”

“Magic,”
Chris said in a creepy voice.

A few more
minutes passed in silence. Owen looked out the windows and saw the trees lit up
by the moonlight. A strong wind was swaying them. This place definitely used to
be a gift shop. It was made up of mostly glass walls. A counter with a cruddy
cash register sitting on top was next to the entrance.

“You don’t
blame yourself for Alyssa’s death, do you?” he asked Chris.

“No. Why
would I? Do you?”

“No.”

“Good. Glad
to see we’re on the same page, then.”

“I was just
wondering. In situations like this, people tend to blame themselves.”

“I place
blame where it belongs” was all Chris would say, because after that, he lowered
his head onto his knees and remained silent.

“We have to
tell her father,” Owen finally said after a few minutes’ silence.

“I know. I
will. And after we take care of this guy, I’m shutting us down.”

Owen didn’t
say anything—he’d seen this coming. One of the Titans was dead, making
everything much more real. This wasn’t a game. But what would Owen do now? He
had no other life. And what about Chris and Daniel? Where would they go?

Thinking
back, Owen suddenly realized he and the others had only worked together for the
softball games. Before, it had just been him and Chris on the streets, where
they had battled three of the vampire-creatures; then, he, Chris and Alyssa had
battled one together before Daniel came on board.

Owen
wondered why they had never fought a monster together, all four of them. There
was no chance they would ever do so from this point on, but it was still a
strange realization to suddenly come by.

“I guess
we’ll have to get jobs now,” he joked.

Chris didn’t
respond. Owen looked out the glass walls to the outside. After asking where
they were, Chris told him the amusement park had been the dream of a young
Baker resident who’d inherited a fortune from his deceased grandfather a decade
ago. The young man had decided to build his own amusement park in a then-remote
part of town. For selfish reasons, he refused to let the general public enjoy
his park: only family and friends.

After Chris
finished the story, silence fell on them again. Owen thought of the
extraordinary things he’d done earlier. He had actually thrown a vehicle across
a street like it was nothing. How on Earth had he done that? He feared that
power had always been there and he just hadn’t known it; it just seemed too
surreal.

“Let me do
the talking,” Chris suddenly said, “and keep the whole car-throwing thing under
the rug.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just
pretend it didn’t happen. That crap was just too weird.”

Owen
couldn’t understand why Chris would want to keep that secret. Owen himself
wanted to know why he’d been able to do it, and if Nikki somehow had the
answer, he wanted it.

Finally, the
two girls came out of the room, giggling. They seemed happy with their
readings.

Now it was
Chris and Owen’s turn.

They stood
up and walked through the purple curtain. The room was fairly small; windows
lined the walls on either side, letting in small amounts of moonlight. The
place looked like a storeroom—a tiny warehouse—except there were no shelves.
There were candles in here as well. In the center of the room was Nikki. She
was sitting at a table covered by a black tablecloth.

There were
also two chairs across from her. She was dressed in a black-and-purple dress
with her hair covered with a black kerchief. Owen and Chris sat down at the
table.

“Hey, Nikki.
Thanks for seeing us,” Chris said with a smile. “Love what you’ve done with the
place.”

“I always
make time for my friends. Also, quit giving me crap about the place; it’s not
forever. That’s why I read for money—I’m saving up,” she said to him before
fixing her eyes on Owen. “And who … are … you?”

Despite her
dark appearance, she seemed upbeat.

“I’m Owen.”

“Chris has
mentioned you a few times. I was wondering if I’d ever get to meet you.”

“Well,” Owen
said nervously, “here I am.”

“There you
are,” said Nikki admiringly. Owen grew uncomfortable.

“Nikki, we—”

“I know,”
she said, interrupting Chris. “One of you is dead. I can hear it in your
voice.”

Nikki
suddenly became sympathetic. Her eyes dropped to the floor and for a moment, it
looked to Owen like she could feel the pain he and Chris felt.

Then she
said, “Tell me about your problem.”

Owen didn’t
know what to say, so Chris spoke.

“It’s a kid
named Michael—red hair, six-foot-two—only he’s not like a normal man. He … he
threw Alyssa into a wall with no effort at all. He’s not like anything we’ve
faced. He’s like some kind of demon—”

“He’s not a
demon,” Nikki said suddenly, as if it had just come to her, but she spoke with
certainty. “Your new threat is very much human.”

Now she
looked at Owen, and he felt exposed, like he was standing on a stage in front
of thousands of people. It was an unmistakable feeling he didn’t like, so he
looked away.

“If he’s
human, how is he able to do these things?” asked Chris.

“Don’t you
know someone who can also do things that are … unexplainable?”

Nikki
continued to stare at Owen. He stared back.

“Sure,” said
Chris. “Owen is different. But this guy threw a dumpster at us. Owen can’t do
that.”

By the look
on his face, Owen could tell Chris did not feel comfortable about the lie he
just told her. Owen wondered if Nikki noticed.

Just then,
someone entered the room through the curtain divider. Owen saw immediately the
long, pale form of the new occupant: His face was long and white, and his head
was bald; it looked like a natural baldness, not shaved. His nose was pointy
and thin, with lips almost as pale as his skin. His skin was smooth and so thin
it was almost transparent, making it hard to tell how old he was, but he had
the air of a teenager. He was wearing a white T-shirt and white jeans. Owen
assumed this was the guy who had taken their money at the box office.