Chaos Lives in Everything - 28. Chapter 28

For two days Skold did not bother to check in on the progress that Gihanni was making; he wanted nothing to do with the human scientist or his human test subject. For the next two nights the group split into two teams, patrolling the city for any signs of the necromancer. Candestine and Rebecca would go in one direction and Skold and Dominyc went in another.

It was on the second night at three o’clock in the morning that Reynolds called Skold’s cell. “I have something that you’re going to want to see,” Reynolds said. “Your necromancer has showed up again.”

Skold glanced sideways at Dominyc. They were on Slope Avenue, heading back in the direction of the Mustang. Skold could not help but feel his hopes rise. After a night of fruitless searching he was starting to think that they would never find Bane.

“What is it?” Skold asked.

“Just come to the city morgue.”

Roc City’s morgue was a two story square brick building. Several cop cars were parked in the parking lot, their sirens flashing silently.

Reynolds led Skold and Dom through the building, past the receptionist area. The mint-green tiled floor was so clean that it squeaked beneath their feet; at first glance it would appear that nothing was wrong. Reynolds gestured for them to go into the freezer area. “Take your time,” he said. “The forensics team have already gotten what they need. All we need is for the coroners to clear away the body. Ironic that the body is already at the morgue. Heh, talk about a sick joke.”

“Your morbid sense of humor never fails to astound me,” Skold quibbed, shaking his hand.

“In this job a little gallows humor goes a long way,” Reynolds said, hooking his thumbs through his belt. “By the way has Gihanni made any progress yet?”

“It has been a couple of days since we’ve heard of him. If he should let us know anything I will let you know.”

Unlike the rest of the morgue, the back room was not so clean. The floor was covered with sheets of blood that had already started to dry. A corpse lay on top of a metal gurney with a white sheet draped over it. Skold pulled back the sheet.

The body belonged to a round-faced middle aged man. His blood-smeared name tag named him as a Dr. Rodger Hartfield.

“Your necromancer took his heart,” Reynolds said. “The sick fuck. Why would he do that?”

“To torment him and cause excruciating agony?” Skold said sharply, starting to become annoyed with Reynolds. “How am I to know?”

“I don’t know. I thought you said you knew him somehow.”

“That was in another life. Some of my memories have been erased, remember?”

Reynolds huffed, crossing his arms. “Well isn’t that just convenient? Anyway, he took six dead bodies with him.” He pointed at the wall of metal coolers. “Six of those had bodies in them. And now they’re empty.”

“He didn’t just take them,” Dom said, looking at the rune that the necromancer had traced on one of the lockers in blood. “He raised them.”

“It’s the same rune that we found in the cemetary,” Skold said.

Reynolds cursed. “So now we have six more of those...revenants...or whatever running around, is that correct?”

“It would appear so.”

“God dammit.” Reynolds rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I’m tired of these charades. It’s been two weeks since the troll attack, since I hired you to find the sonofabitch that started this mess and you’ve turned up little to no evidence.”

Skold glared at Reynolds. “Be careful how you speak to me Sergeant. Look at your own accomplishments before you pull mine under the microscope. What have you and your city department managed to find so far? Nothing, I am sure.”

“I have a whole city that I’m trying to keep under control!” Reynolds shouted, his eyes bulging out of his head. “And it’s falling apart around me! I can’t keep up with it!” Hands shaking and face red, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his blood pressure medicine. Snapping the bottle open he swallowed a pill dry. More calmly he said, “It certainly isn’t helping my health.”

“I understand your frustration,” Skold said, his face softening. “I am just as frustrated and I want to stop this war from happening just as much as you do. We are doing everything that we can.”

“I know you are,” Reynolds said hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

Before Skold could reply his phone rang. It was Gihanni.

“Call the others,” he said, voice tense. “You must come to the lab immediately. With the test subject some interesting results have come up.”

“We will be there right away.” To Dominyc Skold said, “We have to go.”

Rebecca and Candestine were the first to reach Gihanni’s lab; they were the first to see what had become of Drew Marshell. Skold and Dom arrived, just seconds behind them.

“What happened?” Rebecca said, unable to look away from the holding cell, what there was left of it to see.

“I had an idea,” Gihanni explained. “I put the test subject in the holding cell and subjected it to severe doses of radiation in hopes that it would speed up the process of whatever the plague does. I left the lab for a few hours and when I came back it was like this.”

Drew Marshell’s body was covered in the same black crystalline matter that had formed around the revenant’s bones. It hung off of the body like ice cicles, crawling down the legs of the metal table and crawling up the glass walls. It was impossible to see what exactly had become of Drew Marshell’s body. The lights within the cell flickered eerily from where the plague covered them.

What the fuck? Rebecca thought, still unable to believe what she was seeing. What is it doing to him?

As if reading her mind, Gihanni said, “Just a guess but it looks as if the plague has somehow turned into a cocoon.”

“The same way that a catipillar turns into a butterfly,” Candestine said thoughtfully.

Yeah, only this is no catipillar and it certainly won’t be a butterfly, Rebecca thought. “So then what do you think it’s going to turn into? I don’t know about you guys but I’m not sure if I want to find out.”

“We must find out,” Skold said. “Whatever Bane is planning I have no doubt that it involves more of these things. Dominyc and I just visited the morgue. He killed the doctor there and stole six of the corpses. So I imagine he’s harvesting bodies so that he can make more of these...things.”

“I will run some tests and see what more I can find on it,” Gihanni said.

“How will you do that without exposing yourself to the radiation?” Rebecca asked.

“I have a handy dandy hazmat suit,” Gihanni said with a grin.

Not for the first time Rebecca wondered how it was that Gihanni had all of this stuff; the simple explanation that he had inherited his father’s money did not add up. With a shiver, Rebecca decided that she really didn’t want to know. When it came to Gihanni she could not help but think of a sociopath. Like a cat straight from the pits of hell, he was friendly until he clawed your eyes out.

In a seperate room Skold, Dominyc, Candestine and Rebecca watched through an observation window as Gihanni entered the holding cell; the bulky hazmat suit he wore made him look like an astronaut. In one black gloved hand he carried a black duffel bag full of equipment. “I am entering the holding cell now,” Gihanni said. His voice came out of several speakers within the observation room sounding distant, almost robotic.

Fearing for Gihanni, Rebecca could hardly breathe or bare to look-nor could she bare to look away. Part of her did not want to know what had become of Drew Marshell the Rapist, the man that had been condemned to this awful fate by her own judgement. But a bigger part of her wanted to know-and felt that this was what Drew Marshell deserved. Just when she started to hate herself for thinking in such a way she remembered hearing the cries of the woman has she begged for mercy; she remembered how she had cried and begged for mercy, only for her cries to go unheeded.

This is justice, Rebecca thought. Good, bad, right or wrong he deserves to get what’s coming to him. He deserves nothing less. Skold can judge me all he wants to, I don’t care.

And who was Skold to judge? It wasn’t like he was any better. How convenient was it that he should now suddenly have a heart and a concience? Not her, Rebecca thought. She was done being the weakling little human.

They watched as Gihanni took a scalpel and attempt to pierce the cacoon to no avail.

“The outside of the cocoon, if it is indeed a cocoon, is as solid as it appears. I can’t get through it. Perhaps it is meant to be that way so that the cocoon cannot be bypassed to prevent transformation.” There was no fear in Gihanni’s voice, only curiosity and calculation. It was safe to make the comparison that even though they were of a different race, Skold and Gihanni had quite a bit in common.

Setting the bag carefully on the floor, Gihanni reached down and pulled out a powerful looking drill. He immediately set to work, pressing the head of the drill to the cocoon.

“I have penetrated the outer hull of the cocoon,” Gihanni informed them. He stopped. “Wait.”

For the first time Rebecca thought she heard a trace of fear in his voice. He’d frozen. His back was turned so Rebecca could not see his face; that was perhaps the worst part. She feared for Gihanni now more than ever.

“What is it?” Skold asked. He sounded just as nervous as Rebecca felt.

“There’s movement inside of the cocoon...The thing that’s inside...it’s moving. It’s clawing at the inside of the cocoon like it’s trying to get out...” Gihanni’s voice grew higher and higher with each word, a mixture of fascination and fear. “Whatever this plague has done...the test subject is no longer human. Somehow it must have altered the test subjects genetic makeup.”

Skold frowned. When he spoke his voice was urgent. He’s afraid for the doctor too, Rebecca realized. “Doctor,” he said, “stop what you are doing and get out of there now!”

“As you say...”

Just as Gihanni turned away the cocoon exploded outwards with the effect of a sonic grenade. The glass walls of the holding cell exploded, throwing the doctor across the lab. Though Rebecca and the others were protected by the window of the observation room she screamed, shielding her face with both hands.

“Candestine stay here with Rebecca,” Skold ordered. “Dom, come with me!”

As Candestine came to Rebecca’s side, Rebecca watched as Skold and Dom ran into the labratory.

Even with the lights aflicker, Skold’s impeccable eyesight allowed him to see that Gihanni was most certainly dead. The face guard of his suit had been shattered; there was nothing left of his face but scraps of mangled flesh. A sliver of glass had pierced his right eye. The floor was covered in glass. The labratory was ruined.

The creature that had emerged from the cocoon stood before them. Gone was any sembalance of the man that had been Drew Marshell. In his place was a monstrosity unlike anything that Skold had encountered before. Standing at just six feet tall with pale, almost transcluent skin, the creature had a head that very much resembled a hammer head shark. It seemed to have no eyes. For nostrils it had two slits and a wide, shapeless mouth that snarled at them, revealing multiple rows of razor sharp teeth and a long, forked tongue. Sharp tipped bone protruded from the creature’s elbows. Its arms were long and thin. Though its fingers were long with razor sharp claws its hands and feet were almost humanoid in appearance.

Skold could sense that the creature was dangerous. It meant to do them harm and to that end it had to be destroyed; and to that end it had to be destroyed. Gihanni was most certainly dead and dead with him was any hope of producing a cure for the plague. With his Colts in both hands he waited for the creature to move, to see what it would do. Dom on the other hand was not so patient.

“Abomination,” he growled. Hefting the axe Dom charged at the abomination with a battle roar.

Just as it seemed that Dom was about to cleave the creature’s head from its shoulders the abomination knocked him to the side with a swipe of its claws. As if Dom were nothing more than a rag doll his back slammed into the wall, denting metal.

Skold felt the urge to go to his side, to make sure that Dom was okay, but could not. The creature had to be dealt with. A glance in Dom’s direction showed that Dom was still breathing, just unconcious.

Whatever this monstrosity is that stands before me it possesses great strength, Skold thought. No matter, it will die all of the same.

Skold raised both Colts and pulled both triggers. White fire erupted from the muzzles of both guns. Before both bullets could hit their mark, however, the creature jumped out of the way, charging at Skold with great speed. As it charged it knocked a table aside and sent it crashing into the wall.

Skold managed to roll out of the way just in time. As he moved he unloaded the rest of the Colts into the creature. As each bullet hit black fluid arched through the air. The creature roared in agony, a sound that was eerily very human. The creature stood and turned to face Skold. Skold watched in amazement as all twelve quarter sized wounds closed.

The creature is immune to elven silver, Skold thought. Whatever the plague had done to alter Drew and transform it into the abomination before him it did not possess the same vulnerability to elven silver that the fae did. The plague had been engineered to create the perfect weapon.

Which left only one option.

Throwing his palm out in the direction of Dom’s axe, Skold summoned the weapon into his hand and waited for the abomination to charge at him a second time. Skold hefted the axe, ready to slice the creature in half. At the last second the creature leapt and landed behind Skold. Before Skold could turn the creature’s fist slammed into him.

To Skold it felt like being hit by the troll all over again. He flew across the room crashing through the window of the observation room.

The world was starting to dim around him. It was all he could do to fall unconcious. The ground shook beneath him as the abomination leapt into the observation room and charged towards Rebecca and Candestine. In such a small space Candestine did not stand a chance. The creature batted her to the side.

Rebecca, Skold thought, managing to rise to his haunches. Somehow Dom’s axe was still in his hand.

Rebecca was trapped, with no where to go. Skold could see the certainty in her eyes, the certainty that she was going to die. She sobbed, screaming as the creature raised its claws, about to bring it down on her head.

No, Skold thought. He’d promised to protect Rebecca. He would not let her die. If nothing else, if he couldn’t stop the war that the necromancer was trying to start, he would protect Rebecca no matter the cost.

With a single swing of the axe, the abomination’s head rolled off of its shoulders. Its body fell to the floor with a wet thud.

Rebecca stayed where she was, shuttering. Her eyes bulged out of her head.

She looked up at Skold. “I thought I was dead meat.”

Skold took her arm and helped her to her feet. “Not if I can help it.”

“What about the others?”

In the lab Candestine and Dominyc were getting to their feet.

“The creature!” Dominyc growled, outraged. “Where is it? I’m going to rip it apart with my bare hands”

Skold tossed his axe at him. “Don’t worry, I took care of it for you.”

Candestine popped her neck with both hands. “That was most unpleasant.”

“Gihanni...” Rebecca looked sadly at Gihanni’s corpse. “He’s dead.”

“Yes, quite dead.” Skold clenched his jaw; his eyes burned with a cold fire. “And as we speak, Bane somewhere out there in the city making more of these things. We were almost no match for it. Just think what thousands of these things could do. It would be the perfect army that Paladin never had.”

There was not much they could do. They wrapped the two dead bodies in white sheets and carried them to out to Candestine’s van. They drove out to the pier. Rebecca and Skold stood side by side under the black star lit sky and watched as Dom and Candestine threw the two dead bodies into the water.

“I don’t like just throwing Gihanni in the water like this,” Rebecca said; she hugged herself, shivering. “He should be buried with dignity. Someone should notify his family, you know? It’s the right thing to do and this...this feels wrong.”

“I know it disturbs you,” Skold said. “But it has to be done this way. We can’t risk anyone finding the bodies or any evidence with what we’ve been doing. There’s too much at stake. Do you undertand?”

Rebecca nodded reluctantly. “I guess. So what’s the plan now?”

Skold looked out at the water, eyes distant. “There’s only one thing I think we can do: Take the fight to the necromancer.”

“But last time didn’t he...I don’t know...kick your ass?”

“He did,” Skold admitted reluctantly. “That’s why tonight is not over with me. When we are finished here I am summoning the seer. One way or the other she is going to tell me everything she knows about Bane the necromancer. If we are to stop him then she is the only chance that we have.”