Foreboding Skies (The Skybreaker Saga Book 1) (8 page)

Every aspect of a police interrogation room was designed to intimidate and undermine the person in the hot seat. Harsh florescent lights partially blinding you, an uncomfortable chair that refuses to allow anyone to sit comfortably, and the mirror. The mirror that you know someone is intently studying you through, like a researcher observing an animal in a cage. Yes, it was all intended to be dehumanizing and unsettling. I wasn’t technically human and promptly ignored all of that and put myself into a light meditative state. To the casual observer it looked like I fell asleep in my chair.

The ride over had been awkward. No one spoke a word, much less read me my rights. However, if they thought I was a terrorist then they didn’t need to read me my then non-existent rights.

When we arrived at the station Goodwin informed me that I wasn’t under arrest but that really didn’t make me feel any better. In contemporary America not being under arrest didn’t mean you wouldn’t spend a lot of time detained. I suppose the more prudent question would have been who the ultra-douche was and who he was working for. I got the impression he knew what I was, or at least had a better idea than most. I hoped something could be gleaned from the mutual interrogation that was about to happen.

Goodwin and an alluring blonde entered and took the seats opposite me. Neither one said anything or seemed interested in my presence. This part of the interrogation-go-round was designed to get me to talk, to ask or demand something of my questioners. It normally works on most criminals. You were kept in a room designed to unsettle you and then you were confronted with the people who put you there ignoring you. I, however, am not most criminals. I would have to be considered an expert criminal. And good criminals know not to reveal anything. No need to give the hangman any rope if he was all out.

And so, we waited. The Blonde seemed content to keep her attention locked on her smart phone and Goodwin alternated between looking over his files and stealing quick glances at me. I was content to stare at the blonde’s generously sized breasts. It clearly made her uncomfortable, which was the point. I could be as weird as the situation requires. It is foolish of anyone to think that they are completely the interrogator, completely the hunter. I was studying them harder than they were studying me and was just as interested in unsettling them. But the blonde was more than uncomfortable with me. I extended a paper-thin string of essence toward them both but found nothing. I renewed my scrutiny of the woman. A skilled Shaman could mask their emotions easily. Her physical state indicated she was feeling something strongly. Goodwin started talking and I pretended to give him my attention.

“Mr. Smith, John Smith. You have a near spotless record with only a few minor offenses. Steadily employed since college, a roof over your head, and no record of mental illness. You have never traveled to the Middle East and there is nothing suspicious in your family background. All in all you seem to be an unlikely candidate for a terrorist. You also have significant legal representation, which is unnecessary. I do not think you are guilty, but I need to be thorough with my investigation. If you cooperate with us we can have you out of here in under an hour.”

I hadn’t expected the douche to play the good cop of the duo. If they were trying to pull that played out shit then the Blonde, Agent Maranis, was the bad cop. However, she didn’t come across as threatening. She came across as jittery. As if she was being overwhelmed by something. One would almost think she were in the hot seat.

Beyond that she stirred on odd sense of familiarity. I wanted to say that I knew her but had no basis for it. Was she a Shaman I briefly crossed paths with in my training? For a long time that was the only way I met anyone new. If she were a Shaman then she was most likely an enemy. I would have been alerted if any friendly Shaman were inbound. I responded with a standard line. “I would like to cooperate, but nobody has taken the time to explain why exactly the government is so interested in me. Officers Hemmingway and Jones have spoken with me but never said exactly why I am being investigated. I understand there was some sort of terrorist attack, at least that’s what the news called it. But I have no idea why I have been connected to it. As you said, I am not a terrorist.”

“The United States government is interested in you for several reasons. The first of which was the report of Officers Hemmingway and Jones that indicated you may have had a hand in the most recent attack. However, your alibi checks out and there are far more likely suspects than you. Still with the rise of lone wolf attacks we must be careful. Please forgive the inconvenience we have caused you.” Those words coupled with a sugar sweet smile made alarm bells ring all across my mind. I really do not like it when events unfold in a manner that is wholly surprising to me. Politeness, reasonableness, and honesty were not what I was expecting. Gatsby was convinced this was a giant trap and I agreed with him. It was a trick to dazzle me by reveling I was in the clear. And then what?

Whether they were extra evil or merely government evil I refused to believe I would be allowed to walk away. Still, I knew it was best to act the part of the grateful citizen. And wait for some of the other reasons why Uncle Sam was peeking through my windows.

Agent Maranis still seemed uncomfortable. I wasn’t staring at her any more. Though I was keeping my senses trained on her. I was getting the feeling that she really did not like me I was hesitant to probe any harder. My instincts were urging me to be cautious.

There was an air of anticipation, a stillness that precedes a great calamity. They wanted me to start it. So be it. “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that! I have been running myself ragged with worry. This is fantastic news!” Damn. I can play a brilliant concerned and or grateful citizen. Good luck pinning any nefarious deeds on me and my wide eye naivety.

Goodwin oozed frustration and Maranis folded in upon herself. The odd moment held, with the both of them waiting on me to continue. I didn’t have anything left to say, but I also didn’t have anything else to do today. My meeting with the Enclave representative wasn’t till tomorrow. Besides, this was an important fact finding mission. And it was yielding fruit. More pieces revealed themselves to me and I needed to find out how they fit in with the rest.

Goodwin cleared his throat and continued, points to me. “Now that we have established you are not under arrest for terrorism I would like to move onto the next reason the government is interested in you. We have reason to believe that you or several of your associates belong to a certain …community. A community that has recently come into the light from a long time in the shadows. We would like to open relations if you will.” That was what I was waiting for. Uncle Sam wasn’t far behind, though the general public knew nothing. But that was hardly unusual. They were the ones who always overrated to every little secret.

Standard operating procedure in situations like this and take a play from politics 101. Lie and Deny. The Silence was on its last legs, but now wasn’t the right time. And these were not the right people. As daunting and frustrating as my problems were now they would be magnified greatly if I shared anything other than my name, rank, and favorite cereal with the Feds. And if the people sitting across from me were the people who responsible for this mess then that was complication enough. I needed to slip away in a calm and smooth manner that wouldn’t exasperate the situation any further. I was an expert at exasperating situations. You could say I was a master exasperator. Unfortunately I lacked the ability to appease.

“I don’t think I follow Agent Goodwin, what community are you talking about? I’m not entirely sure what…Oh! Oh… well I’m not gay you see…” That got a reaction at least. Maranis actually looked right at me for a moment before anchoring her eyes on her report once more. Goodwin seemed to be having a minor conniption underneath his smile.

Going the way you thought it would Mr. Douchebag? Most likely not. I wasn’t precisely gaining the upper hand so much as I was spitting on theirs. I know I said I would be polite, and I think that I was succeeding in that respect. But that didn’t mean I had to be meek and roll over.

“You misunderstand me Mr. Smith. I am not referring to the Gay community. Umm, how to phrase this? This particular community is far older than any other. It has roots all over the world and has had a profound impact upon the world. A community made up of extra-ordinary people…err individuals. Do you understand?” I didn’t see how it was possible to understand his rambling. If he was bullshitting me he excelled at it. I was almost ready to believe he really was here on official assignment. Only almost.

Maranis was emitting hostility, that could mean she was my enemy or that she was one of the numerous humans who loathed and feared the supernatural. Funny that Goodwin didn’t seem at all hateful. He was still a douche.

Before any more words could be spoken a knock sounded at the door. Maranis didn’t bother looking up and I was being interrogated, which left Rick to answer the door.

After a few seconds he did rise to answer the door with a glare at his partner and a reassuring nod to me. I was not reassured. Every instinct across the various levels of my mind told me this was wrong. He shouldn’t be nice to me, this was unnatural behavior. This meant I was getting played. That still left me Maranis to figure out. The surface of a person was misleading, as tremulous emotions bubble up to the surface they twist and bend till they appear to be entirely different from their source.

For all I knew she was upset because her favorite show had been canceled or her significant other walked out on her. I still refrained from looking at her with my spirit filter on. I still didn’t know why I was stopping myself from doing that. I got the distinct impression it would be a bad idea.

I don’t know what I was going to say to her. But I was going to say something. I would have, had Goodwin not reentered the room with a cheery smile. It still looked wrong on him. Like smiles everywhere were under assault. “Good news Mr. Smith. We are letting you go immediately. We just have to ask you to stay in town for the next couple of days. And don’t worry about those detectives anymore, they have been reassigned.”

I wanted to punch him, to defend the sanctity of the smile. It was good news though. Too bad I felt like a kid who had been given a caramel and razor blade apple. There wasn’t much to say, I bowed myself out with much dignity and grace. I didn’t turn back, but I swear that as I left the building a lot of eyes were on my back. How many were curious, weary, hostile? I really couldn’t say.

The sun had already begun its descent beneath the horizon by the time I began walking home. I hadn’t realized how late the interrogation ran. Despite the inconvenience of my detainment the day still proved to be a pleasantly productive one. I met with the wolves and Wiccans, managed to play some mini-golf, and found a possible lead in the form of one Agent Rick Goodwin, douche bag extraordinaire and probable evil maniac. I doubted he was the mastermind of whatever it was that I was mucking my through. More likely he was yet another pawn, albeit more competent than most.

He had to be a prominent figure in the intelligence world to have any knowledge of the Community. Plus, he had been sent on what amounted to a diplomatic mission with a representative of the Community, which meant important people placed a lot of faith in him. But anyone who managed to climb high up the ladder of power always had secrets worth hiding. Perhaps some partially decomposed skeletons or bags of pills. If my assumptions were correct then Vladimir would already have a file on the guy that he would let me see after a few hours of begging. The bastard never liked ceding anything to anyone, least of all the most potent weapon known, knowledge. That reminded me, I was neglecting an important source of information. Downs was still waiting for me at the warehouse and I needed to strike while the iron was hot.

I was not paying attention as I strolled through a little city park pondering all the ways I could make a drug fiends life miserable, but my instincts were. The arrow logged itself deep in my shoulder as my body threw itself to the side while my conscious mind tried to catch up. I instinctively lashed out in all directions with hurricane force winds. I can do brute force easily. It was the precise things that tripped me up. 

I had little idea where my attackers were, but at least now we were even. I had already cloaked myself and waited within the cloud of debris. All of my senses were keyed up to maximum sensitivity. I stirred the air around me. I was working on a trick akin to echo location. By disbursing a finite amount of my essences into the surrounding area I could feel objects with the air I controlled. It was still a work in progress. The combination of a crippled lung and an arrow through my shoulder made focusing difficult.

Now it was a waiting game again. They could fire randomly into the cloud but the wind would make it pointless, not at all like the arrow in my shoulder. No, if they wanted me they would have to get close.

Nothing. Stillness. Interspersed with flashes of pain from my wound. Like a tranquil night shattered by lightning and thunder. My perception of time was distorted. The arrow was coated in some sort of venom. It couldn’t have been more than a minute before I felt a hostile scent hit my nose. It was faint, unaccompanied by any sound. I kept my eyes closed as they would only fool me now. Whoever was trying to kill me had superb skills even if their approach was too loud. Most likely elves or perhaps goblins. They were typically the assassins of choice for the Community and both preferred long distance. 

Move. The unconscious command came roaring at me and I obeyed. I leapt back and to the left while slashing to my right with a sharp torrent of wind. Imagine hurricane force winds compressed down to the area of a sword with a wicked edge. I hit something, the smell of blood lit up my nostrils and I heard a light thud. Still not a peep from my assassin. He had an impressive tolerance of pain.

I scored a hit but I felt less than celebratory at the moment. It seemed I couldn’t detect my opponents accurately with scent and my air flows had given me little warning. I had to get out of here soon. Whatever part of my mind that wasn’t seized by baser instincts told me that someone would come along and see something that would get them killed. This was a public park after all and someone would be around to check on all the noise. My wound felt strange. There were no more scolding lances of pain. It was settling into a low pulsing agony. I didn’t have the luxury of examining it now. Escape had to be my number one priority. The distinct sound of a metallic object bouncing on the ground was all the warning I got before an obnoxiously loud boom propelled a thousand racing fire ants in my direction.

My enhanced reflexes saved me yet again. I had managed to avoid the worst of it, but the burning sensation from my left leg told me I had still gotten hit with shrapnel. Two more grenades followed, forcing me to aggressively hobble toward the small stream that ran through the park. I sent gusts out in several directions to obscure my path.

The city was already on edge after one building exploded. With grenades being popped off like bubble wrap, heavily armed law enforcement officials would be onsite in minutes. I yearned for the good old days before organized police forces.

One of the assassins swiped at me through the dust. I ducked under the blow and manifested Gatsby’s claws on my right hand to rake across his stomach. The bastard sprang back quickly turning a solid hit into a glancing blow. My claws barely penetrated his thick hide. As he was moving back I brought my left hand slashing down wreathed in cutting winds and relieved him of his other arm. He was armless, but by no means harmless. It is important to keep a sense a humor for situations like this. I lost him again, but it meant he lost me as well.

Out of the Fog he came at me again, this time with an easily avoided head-butt. That’s when I noticed the grenade protruding from his mouth. There should have been a pin in said grenade, but there was not. He was committing to a suicide strike. But in that instant I was able to finally get a good look at the bastard. He had greenish leather skin that was pulled too tight over a misshapen frame. His feral grin revealed rotting gums that oozed a yellow puss. I was facing a fucking reaver. The wall of wind I spun up hit him with the same force as a speeding truck.

The resulting effect was the one armed bomber skipping across the river before doing his best bug on a windshield impression against a tree. The grenade still exploded and drew my attention for an instant. Then I was lying on my side, but I wasn’t sure why. My wound went completely numb before a hard hit to my stomach rolled me down to the edge of the river.

An elven maiden with a painted on cat suit strutted toward me. I suppose this was the person in charge. Any hopes I had of bullshitting my way out of this died grimly when I actually got a good look at her. Another reaver judging by the eyes, the most insane and lethal form of undead. They took a lot of effort to create and control. Someone must truly want me dead. This one was far stronger than her partner. She was able to reasonably conceal what she was. Or not. Dangling between her heaving breasts was a talisman. I was going to brutalize the bastard who was making the blasted things.

“Hello little Shaman. I was hoping we could have had more fun.” She said as she drove a heeled foot into my arrow wound. Bitch. And who wears heels to kill a man? They don’t have much utility. I shared my thought with her. All I got was more pressure on my wound. It helped to clear my head. She went on talking. “But my employers want this done as soon as possible, forcing me to use such uncouth methods.” I was losing focus fast and her voice wasn’t helping, it was in fact lulling me to my grave. “You must be wondering about these wonderful talismans everyone that’s trying to kill you seems to have. A gift from my employer, whom you will not live to see. I am sure the mystery is just, killing you.” Ha ha ha. I didn’t mind the attempt on my life, but truly tasteless humor in serious situations is my shtick.

If the pain radiating from my shoulder had been any less intense I might have nodded off during her victory speech. Did every egomaniac villain receive an instruction manual on how to gloat? It reminded me a lot of the tortoise and the hare. I always thought the official lesson from that story was wrong. Slow and steady wins the race? Ridiculous. The tortoise didn’t win because he was slow and steady. He won because the rabbit was a cocky bastard and took a nap mid race.

Essentially a gloating victory speech is taking a nap while you have not yet crossed the finish line and the other guy is still in the race. She should have killed me. Reavers have immense strength packed into their twisted bodies. She could have ripped my head off of my shoulders with ease and she should have. But she didn’t and in the time it took to gloat instead of killing me, I focused enough essence for a daring escape.

I stopped wasting any attention on her at that point, something she didn’t like apparently because she kicked me closer to the river. She was more perceptive than I expected a reaver to be. “Men are so rude! Here I am making sure you can go to the grave satisfied and you aren’t even listening!” I hadn’t realized she was being considerate. I gave her my famous (infamous) smile and whispered something. She frowned and moved in closer. It was a natural reflex, but not a smart one.

“Shoo fly, don’t bother Me.” was all I could croak out. It wasn’t a very badass thing to say, but I was too tired to put any more effort toward wordplay. She didn’t even have the time to look confused before I raised my hands and released my last hurrah. A cannon ball of hardened air caved in her chest causing a spray of repulsive goo to explode across the park. The force pushed me into the water, and her? Well I don’t know how far she flew. I was too busy trying to stay conscious.

There was nothing like being plunged into bone chilling water to wake you up. Except the blood curdling scream of a forsaken monster hungry for your guts, that can wake you up almost as well. The bitch was back, this time with wings. They were fragile looking things that shouldn’t have been able to support the weight of a housecat. Her jaw now hung a good four inches lower than it should have. Grandma what monstrous teeth and dead rotting eyes you have. She looked like she was wrapped in leather and severely burned. Smelled like it too. I had only encountered a reaver once before and my master handled it. Wings meant this one had reached the top of its game, and that I was screwed. I let the stream carry me while the bitch circled overhead. Reavers are tailor made high performing predators and it took all of five seconds for her to locate me. What I initially thought was the thudding of a distant helicopter begun to drown out everything else. With yet another screech, this one triumphant, she entered a sharp dive aimed squarely at me.

And then…Nothing. Everywhere I looked I could see absolutely nothing. No undead, no injuries, and no freezing water. Only an empty expanse that extended in all directions greeted me. The lack of sound was the most disturbing aspect of wherever I was. I couldn’t even hear my heart beat or the sound of my breathing. I couldn’t feel my body at all. I never thought that death would be unbearably dull.

Wake up.

A voice of thunder boomed from everywhere. “Hello? Am I dead? If so, where am I supposed to go?”

Wake up.

“I’m not sleeping. I’m dead.”

Wake up
.

“If I wake up will you shut up?”

Yes. Now, wake up. This is no place for you. You are not ready.

I went from being nowhere to the ninth level of hell in an instant. I was being pulled apart at the core. I thrashed and struggled against both forces, neither one seemed interested in doing me any favors. One side gained the upper hand and I was thrust through layers of jagged ice. Shredded cheese had more structure than I did at the moment. I couldn’t scream. It was trapped in my lungs, unable to announce my agony to the world.

And it was over. I was back in the park, looking up at the darkening sky as my would be killer descended. On the heels of my sight returning was my pain returning. All of the pain. All at once. The scream that found no egress before resounded throughout the night. My scream scared her more than it did me. She killed her momentum and peeled off, choosing to circle above me. She observed me from about thirty feet up, still within attack range. I shakily stood up and faced the stalling undead. Her face was torn between terror and disbelief. From where I was barely standing there wasn’t a single thing stopping her from finishing me off. 

And yet she was afraid... reavers were not built to feel fear. They were built, like most undead, to be disposable drones that single mindedly carried out a simple task. The only characteristics of a reaver were different from the run of the mill were their increased strength and ability to engage in higher level thought, as long as it related to their task. Fear wasn’t allowed. With a defiant shriek she tore off into the empty sky. She took with her any shred of belief that I still had any understanding of what was happening.