Judgement (The Twelve) (7 page)

Anvil
was a split second away, hand stretched out to stop Chris, “NO!” He bellowed.

It was too late, the Shades head exploded into burning ash, quickly followed by its body. The ash hissed in the rained before being washed away by the downpour.

Anvil
lowered his hand and just stood there staring at Chris. Rage also had stopped, he was looking at Chris’s hand, “That’s going to hurt.”

Chris looked
down;
his hand was a boiling mass of blistering burns which were already fading. He knew what was coming next and gri
tted
his teeth in preparation for the pain to come. It struck
s
o
bad;
it
drove him to his knees. Chris tried not to cry out but couldn’t help himself. After three of four very long seconds, the pain quickly disappeared, leaving him breathless.

Patch and Huntress joined them. Patch knelt before Chris, “You okay?”

He managed a no
d as she helped him to his feet.

“
Good
”,
said Rage and promptly hit him with the back of one mighty hand. Chris flew through the air at least ten feet, to land hard in the gutter.

“Rage!” Patch screamed, running to Chris’s side.

“He will heal. You saw
, should do as Anvil order.
” Rage rumbled.

Chris’s head swam and he tasted blood. He felt a bone in his cheek pop back into place and it hurt as his nose straightened with a horrible crunching noise. Again Patch helped him upright. He grimaced as several ribs mended themselves.
Then felt a slight pull as he popped back into real time together with Patch.

A police officer glanced to his left, then his head snapped round,
“Hey
you, what
you doing here….”

Anvil
strode over to him,
waving a hand, putting them back in the In Between. He
ignor
ed
the fact a blow like that would have killed anyone else,
“You
ruined the op.”

Another police officer in a paper white boiler suit asked, “What you see
Fred
?”

The uniformed officer looked confused, he thought he’d seen someone on the ground not more than twenty feet away, but he couldn’t have. No one was there and there was no where to hide.

“Nothing, mind playing tricks is all.”

Chris spat blood from his
mouth
,”
Ruined
what?”
He whispered.

Anvil stood
over him, “No need to whisper, they can’t see you, you’re back in the In Between.
”

Huntress had replaced her bow across her back
and answered Chris’s question
, “We wanted it alive or what passes for alive.
Anvil
would have tried to get information from it.”

Chris looked back at the police officers,
“
T
hey didn’t see anything?
”

Patch rubbed his
arm,” They
never do. How did you take us back into real time Chris?”

Chris mumbled to himself, “
I never knew
and I don’t know
.”

“What?”
Huntress asked.

Chris looked across to the police,
“All this time and this has been going on around me.”

Anvil was staring at Chris, “When you destroyed it. Did you release the soul?”

“What? I just thought by destroying the Shade you….”

Anvil s face grew stern,” So you avenged that old tramp and allowed him to ascend but you also did something I didn’t know
w
as possible.”

Chris glanced
at
Patch
who know looked horrified
, “What?”

“You killed a soul.”

Chris
didn’t answer
her
just stared
at
Anvil
, “
But the Shade
needed killing or destroying o
r whatever the hell you call it
for what it did to Wally!
”

Anvil slapped
the head of his double headed
hammer
into the palm of his other hand
, “And we would have, after torturing the
Shade
. I wanted to find
its
nest.”

“But I destroyed it.”

“Yes but you’re not one of us. Only one of the Twelve can release a soul.”

Chris didn’t understand anything, especially how he’s moved so fast or how he’d killed the thing
,
i
f killing was the right word.
“This is a God awful nightmare!”

Anvil sighed, “You weren’t to know.”

Patch gently punched him on the
arm,” Don’t
blaspheme.”

She looked so serious. Chris laughed
almost hysterically
, “I’m mixed up with some
weird
people who hunt dead things called Shades that
kill people, eat them and steal their souls
and work for something called The Dark, which
apparently you’re scared of and
you don’t want me to blaspheme?”

Rage ambled up to tower over him, “Got a problem with that?”

Chris decided now wasn’t the time to argue and shook his head.

“Good lets go eat.”
Rage slapped him on the back, which sent him flying again.

As they walked away, Patch whispered in his ear, “
We can heal faster than a human but y
ou heal yourself quicker than we do. Did you know that?”

Chris thought back to his step father, “It never used to be like that.”
He remembered the beatings and much, much more. Some things don’t heal at all.

Patch laughed, “Things change as we get older, or rather when you get older.
I died
and was reborn, you stop growing any
older.
I’m
really
eight hundred years old
going on seventeen
and apart from the eye patch I think I’m
still
pretty. Do you?”

Chris could only stare open mouthed,” You died eight hundred years ago!”

“Yes but I was reborn. It’s not like I’m a
zombie
or
any
thing and
before you ask, yes
there are zombies
but not many, thank God
.
We have enough trouble with
The Dark,
Shades and the occasional ghoul.
So do you think I’m still pretty?”

Chris
was amazed the way she could change track in mid sentence. All he
could
do was
nod in agreement.

“Good, tell you what though
.
Anvil wants to keep you. You’re something new, something different. You can do things we do and some that we can’t
,
but I like you. Stay awhile pleaaase just for me?”

Chris
found himself nodding as he wondered what
was happening to him
!

Chapter two

B
ack at the boarded up house, Chris sat on the settee
in the dusty damp living room
, his head in his hands
.
Priest sat next to him
, taking up the rest of the settee
.

He was speaking to Chris,
“
When you destroyed the Shade, did you see anything else?”

Chris shook his head as Priest persisted, “No secondary flash
? N
o ghost like image? No faint scream or moan?

Chris still shook his head. Priest thought this through, “Hum strange. I always thought that if a soul was to die along with the Shade, you would see or hear something. I wonder?”

Anvil cut into his thoug
hts, “He ca
n’t go back
. T
he police will be looking for
him as a suspect.”

Priest nodded, “
Anything in your…..home that can ID you?”

Chris shook his head, “Nothing at all.”

“Does any
charitable
agency know you
,
The Salvation Army perchance?”

Chris thought hard, although he ate at several different hostels. He never once told anyone where he lived. He shook his head.

Priest looked up at
Anvil
, “Good our friend is a nameless vagabond. He will stay with us of course?”

Anvil
grunted, “Damn right he will. I need to
find out
what he is.”

Chris didn’t
like the idea that Anvil wasn’t giving him a choice whether he stays or goes and he didn’t
miss the reference to
Anvil
wanting to know what he is, not who he is. For that matter who or what was he? Chris thought
of himself as a victim living rough but free as a bird. But truth be told he didn’t like living in a bloody box
. Now
,
what the hell…..sorry God…
here he was, a prisoner of some very strange people, immortal if they were to be believed. All
had
died and
were
reborn with superhuman powers. 
They t
rack
ed
down monsters called Shades
, which if he hadn’t seen with his own two eyes, would never have believed they existed.