The Twelve Stones (31 page)

Alex was lying sprawled out defenseless on the cold concrete parking lot, defeated for the moment. Helpless against Geoffrey’s continued onslaught with his cattle prod, Alex watched painfully as his stone flashed unpredictably. The stone was powerless to prevent Alex’s muscles from the violent spasms each time Geoffrey rammed the cattle prod into his gut. His limbs and arms were shaking wildly as a hundred thousand volts of electricity flowed through his body.

Alex screamed as Geoffrey pushed his body back down with a long sustained burst from the cattle prod.

“
I’ve seen this healing ability of yours twice now, and I must say I am just fascinated by it
,
” Geoffrey said lightly, as if interviewing a prospective job candidate. “But, it seems to me that you are still vulnerable to non-lethal means. What a shame that is for you
,
eh? Always tragic when a person learns he is not invincible.” Geoffrey shoved the cattle prod viciously into Alex’s midsection.

Alex screamed in pain, his body flopping around on the concrete
.
Geoffrey
pull
ed
the cattle prod back, a smile spreading across his face as Alex slumped back to the ground, a marionette
with it
s strings cut.

Alex shook violently, the taste of bile entering his mouth. Unable to hold it back, he vomited all over the parking lot. His body, traumatized by the voltage, was unable to recover. He clutched the stone on his necklace weakly.

Omar watched impassively as Geoffrey chuckled at Alex. His laughter stopped as his eye fell on a familiar
-
looking stone hanging around Alex’s neck.
Alex
moaned
,
his body too weak to protest, as Geoffrey snapped the cord holding the healing stone from off his neck. He held it close to his face
,
inspecting the dark stone, his pulse growing faster as he began to put two and two together.

“
Now this looks a lot like Mr. Kline’s…” Geoffrey trailed off, the smirk on his face fading fast. He had often wondered how Kline had gotten his incredible strength. Once, he had asked Kline about it
;
Kline had simply smiled and mentioned some vague things about nanotechnology and such. Geoffrey had never seen Kline without his ring; a ring with a stone that looked exactly like
…
N
o
, that wasn’t quite right
.
Kline’s was a different color
,
of course, but the two stones LOOKED related. Th
e man wore that stone everywhere
, with no exceptions.

Once, while on one of Kline’s many trips to his native home in Kent, England, Kline and Geoffrey had been leaving the United States through New York’s JFK Airport. There, at security, the TSA agents attempted to stop Kline from going through the metal detector with his ring on.

Two hours later, after Geoffrey had smoothed things over with JFK’s airport and Homeland
S
ecurity
, the New York Transit Authority reported they found the TSA agent’s body out on the runway, torn in half. No one had seen her leave her post, and even more strangely, the Agent wasn’t even supposed to have
had
access to the runway. The grisly condition they
’d
found the body
in had
made the questions all the more intriguing. But, as Kline often reminded him, Geoffrey was not paid to ask questions.

Stabbing Alex again with the cattle prod, Geoffrey leaned down close to Alex and dangled the stone over his face.

“
What is this?” He hissed. “Where did you get this stone?”

Alex spat in Geoffrey’s eyes. Geoffrey stood and savagely kicked Alex several times in the ribs
then resumed
menacing
him with
the cattle prod.

“
What is this?” Geoffrey roared
.
“Tell me
,
dammit!”

“
Go to hell.” Alex whispered, spitting out blood.
Great, coughing up blood,
‘
cause that’s always fun
, he thought to himself grimly.

Geoffrey’ face wrenched into
rage.
H
e began to stab Alex savagely with the cattle prod.

Alex didn’t disappoint Geoffrey as his screams echoed through the parking lot. After a
long
moment, Geoffrey removed the prod and waved dismissively at the body in front of him.

“
Cuff him and put him in the truck
,
”
h
e
growled to Omar. Omar nodded, reaching behind his back for a pair of handcuffs. He squatted on Alex, moving the man’s arms behind his back, closing the handcuffs tight.

Omar looked at the prisoner before him. This man had the ability to heal from any wounds. Omar was not a particularly religious man, but once you watch someone take thirty rounds of nine millimeter ammunition to the chest, miracles begin to look more than just possible. Could he be one of the blessed
a
ngels
, one of God’s warriors his
a
buela
used to tell him about when he was smaller in Chualexica? Omar swallowed, beginning to feel uneasy, thinking
–
not for the first time
—
that
he might be fighting for the Devil’s cause instead of God’s.

Geoffrey ignored Omar as he stared at the stone on the chain in front of him. The more he examined the stone he had taken from the young man, the more certain he
became that it was
a twin to
Kline’s
.

True, Kline’s stone was red instead of
the
cold blackness of this one, but they both had the same distinct, claw
-
like shape. Occasionally, out of the corner of his eye, Geoffrey would see Kline’s ring flash, right before he displayed some feat of strength. Passing it off as some trick of the light, or a fear
-
induced hallucination, he had never paid much mind to
it
. But after tonight, and seeing the same bright flash
as
a bullet had entered Mr. McCray’s body, Geoffrey no longer had any doubt. The two stones may display different powers
, he thought
, but they definitely belonged to the same family.

Geoffrey’s greedy mind began to race with possibilities. If this stone was the source of the young man’s healing prowess, then this would put him on equal footing with his boss’s incredible strength. No longer would Geoffrey Tate be second fiddle to that man in the suit. He could ask for an equal stake in Mr. Kline’s operation.

Geoffrey clasped his hands together in glee. It was almost too much to dream. With the ability to live through any injury, if he played his cards right, he could have much more than fifty percent. With proper planning, he could have it all.

But
,
as Alex had so effectively proved moments before, being distracted in a combat situation is never good for your health.

Suddenly, Geoffrey’s hand holding the cattle prod began to glow red as it shook violently in his hand. Then, with a force unseen, it flew from his hand and landed across the parking lot
,
sparking brightly. Geoffrey glanced up too late. Scott
,
holding his secret weapon tightly
,
dialed up the power.

“
Goodnight
,
sweet prince!” Scott yelled as he pressed the trigger on the beefed
-
up flashlight.

Geoffrey, standing next to the Suburban Alex had stolen from the men in the desert, barely managed to duck out of the way in time as the truck exploded into a thousand pieces of flaming shrapnel and metal. Scott’s weapon fired a green pulse of light, and a strange hum filled the air. The pulse flew through the air and shook everything in its path apart.

One of the mercenaries from Geoffrey’
s
team found himself standing too close to the SUV as it exploded, and his body
flew
through the air, finally crumbling to the ground several dozen yards away.

Dumbfounded, Scott looked down at his new weapon.

“
Oh wow, OK, now that was cool!” Scott said
,
impressed with himself, as he reset the MISAMP.

He raised his arm up again, aiming his
weapon
towards Geoffrey. But by now, the surprise was lost
,
and Geoffrey had already pulled out his pistol and started firing back at Scott. Omar
, who had also recovered,
dropp
ed
to his knee, raised his MP5 up from the crook of his arm, and began to squeeze off three round bursts towards Scott.

Scott barely ducked out of the way as the lead began flying towards him. Scampering out of range, Scott turned the corner around a large
u
niversity building and began aiming towards where he thought Geoffrey and
Omar were.
As he p
ress
ed
the trigger, several thousand pounds of pressure created by amplified sound and microwaves crackled through the air at supersonic speeds.

Omar dove to the right, taking cover behind the other Suburban the team had taken to get to JPL. He looked up, catching Geoffrey’s eye. Making several hand signals, he silently told his boss to give him covering fire until he could outflank Scott and get a better bead on him. Geoffrey nodded, popped out from behind the column he was hiding behind, and began laying down fire.

Scott ran and ducked behind a small concrete obelisk, built as a lamp for the path at night. Their prey cornered, Omar and Geoffrey began to move in, shooting all around Scott to keep him where he was.

Scott screamed, scared out of his mind. For a moment, time stopped. He turned his head to the right, watching his best friend crawl away weakly towards some cover. He turned his head to the left. There, Omar popped up, his rifle aimed directly at Scott, the laser
sight
fixed directly on his forehead.

Then something strange happened. In fact, it was so strange that Scott was certain he was hallucinating. Suddenly, an enormous grizzly bear appeared behind Omar and roared.

Omar turned, hearing the sound behind him. Seeing the twelve
-
foot
-
tall beast in front of him, Omar screamed in terror. The
g
rizzly
roared and batted Omar with his paw, knocking him down, his body flopping uselessly on the ground.

Scott
stared
at the great beast
in disbelief.
It glanced back for only a second, then
roared and moved towards Geoffrey to finish him off.

Geoffrey could only watch from a distance
,
incredulous as the grizzly bear appeared out of nowhere, knocking his best man down, tearing through his body like a sheet of tissue paper. Swearing, Geoffrey clutched the stone tightly
,
looking at it. No time like the present to see if it worked.

The grizzly, running towards Geoffrey, stopped and roared, the stone lodged in its ear flashing a dark purple.

Geoffrey aimed the pistol at the great beast’s head and pulled the trigger. Roaring in pain, the grizzly peeled off and moved away
.
Geoffrey
fired
as many times as he could, pumping every round of his high
-
capacity clip into the bear.

Roaring in pain, the
b
east
scampered off
to recover
, and Scott stared in disbelief as his new ally
retreated
.

Scott shook his head
.
“Well, that’s not something you see every day.”

Geoffrey peeked out from the corner he had taken refuge behind. Reloading his pistol, Geoffrey moved towards Scott and aimed
.
H
e
was done messing around with this chess club reject.

But before he could get the drop on him, Scott whirled around and fell to the ground. Two shots whizzed over Scott’s head
,
dangerously close.

Moving quickly, knowing that every second counted, Scott pushed himself up, firing his MISAMP dead onto Geoffrey’
s
chest. The whip crackle of his greatest invention
snapp
ed
the air as the beam instantly boiled any vapor in its path.

Amazingly, Geoffrey stood his ground and absorbed the impact from the beam, and only stumbled a bit as gale
-
force winds
slammed
his body. Alex’s stone, now wrapped in Geoffrey’ fist, flashed a brilliant blue, retreating from around his form after the pulse from Scott’s MISAMP had failed to kill him.