DARK CANADA
Ch. 2
Ross reached in and yanked Jo clear from the Homeless Bomber's grasp just as blood began leaking from her tear ducts. Andy locked an arm up under the man's elbow and the two began a twisting, whirling dance of death. Andy swore as the man's life-draining grasp hovered just inches from his own throat --
Ross kicked open the fire doors. "Andy, get him clear. EVERYBODY OUT!"
With panicked screams the other museum patrons rushed past the struggle and down the stairs. They were tangled up in their panic, though, stumbling, shoving -- they clogged up just one flight down, pounding on each other madly. The Homeless Bomber let loose another garbled scream and tried dragging Andy toward the exit. Ross kicked the man in the chest, sending both he and Andy stumbling back into the room.
"Oh HEY thanks!" Andy grunted as he struggled for footing. The maniac was supernaturally strong. "Could I get a little help? Where's DENIS?"
"Right here." Denis stepped up calmly. In his right hand was a laquered wooden dowel used to hold up the cloth in the display case. He leaned back and smashed it on the metal corner of the case behind him, leaving a jagged edge.
"What's that forrrgaaahhh --" Andy choked. The Homeless Bomber locked his iron grip around the Agent's throat.
"This." Denis took another second, calculating, then SHOVED the splintered end of the wooden stake into the Bomber's chest.
The man collapsed in a pile of bones and sand.
Andy fell to his knees, completely off balance. He stared at the still steaming pile of clothes. "You've got to be kidding me."
His comment was partially motivated by the magical dissolving act the Bomber had undergone ...
... and partially because the bomb itself sat there on top of the pile of gunk. The cheery little red numbers happily informed them that only 20 seconds remained before they'd be added to the walls of the museum, "Abstract in Overpressure in Red". Denis knelt by the bomb, began wokring on it. Beside him, Flynn knelt to help. "Military training," he muttered off Denis' look.
"Take all the help I can get."
"Thr -- thrcchh- ow..." Jo was trying to form words. "Stairs." Ross looked back into the fire stairs. Still full of people. Well, this is what they got paid for. Dying so others may live, facing the shadows --
BEEP.
Denis leaned back on his haunches. "There. Rather primitive, actually."
(DM's Note: Does Denis seem like king gaming stud in the previous section? Well, that night he was. Natural 20 on the crit to stake the bomber. Natural 20 on the bomb defuse. Some nights, Lady Luck's a b*tch, and some nights she's a drunken little prom girl who just wants love ...)
Flynn raised the Bomber's trenchcoat from the ashes. Covertly, he ran his hands through the pockets. Something hard, a mix of metal and plastic, slid into his grasp. He palmed it. "How'd you know to do that?"
"I didn't," shrugged Denis. "I was just trying to kill him."
"We SO need to be gone." Andy and Ross helped Jo to her feet, led her to the stairs.
Flynn stepped in front of them. "We can take this down to where your car is parked, there's an emergency outlet in the parking garage. You can then come to my place, stay there for a bit."
"Why are you helping us?" Andy asked, trying to be casual.
Flynn was already two floors below them, taking the stairs three at a time. "I'm a reporter."
The Hoffman Agents groaned as one.
*******************************************
In the parking garage, Flynn moved from row to row, searching. He could see Jo leaning back against a car as Denis wiped the blood from her face. Andy and Ross caught up to him. "Man," Andy said. "Weird how you can think you see one thing --"
"Can it, it won't work." Flynn ignored them, still searching, He seemed to be squeezing something between the fingers of his right hand. All of them paused to acknowledge the sound of approaching sirens. "Don't worry, though, the offer of a place to crash was legit. I can tell you're from out of town. The accents."
"What accent?" Ross frowned. "I don't have an accent."
Flynn shook his head. "Americans. Anyway, we need to find that idiot's car --" A CAR HORN suddenly started blaring near them. Flynn raised his right hand. He was holding a set of car keys. He had his thumb pressed firmly on the red panic button. "Best way to find a car lost in the lot during Christmas shopping."
"Not bad." Ross and Andy's curiousity got the better of them. They sidled up to the car. Stopped. "Um..." Andy continued, "was anybody else expecting the mad Homeless Bomber who turned into dust to be driving a Ford Taurus?"
"Jeesh, there's a kid's baseball mitt in the back," Ross pointed out. "Suburban undead."
Flynn climbed behind the wheel. The inside of the car was a mess, filled with cheap fast-food containers, weird looking books and notebooks, old clothing. He flipped open a notebook. The tiny, scrawled writing within filled eavery page front and back to the very edges of the paper. There had to a thousand insane, spidery little words on every page. And every page, as far as Flynn could tell, in every notebook was full. The parking stub for the garage was nestled in the sun visor."
"Follow me," Flynn said, turning the engine over. "We'll talk at my place."
********************************************
Flynn's home turned out to be a modest little bungalow house near the lakeshore in Toronto. He pulled into his driveway. The Agents pulled in behind him, blocking him in.
"Find anything else out about the car?" Denis asked as they all walked up to the house.
"Glove compartment full of parking tickets, someplace out near U.C.C." Andy opened his front door. "Didn't check the trunk." Jo raised her hand expectantly. Andy considered a moment, then tossed the keys to her. "The rest of you, come on in."
Jo watched them go, then turned to the car. She shivered in the wet, cold wind coming off the lake. It chewed away at what little warmth she had left in her after the Bomber's bizarre assault. She pulled her coat tighter around her neck, circled the vehicle.
Yes, a late-model Ford Taurus, forest green. "My Child Is an Honor Student" bumper sticker. She popped the trunk, paused. A smell wafted out from the small space between the trunk edge and the fender. Something acrid and organic. Biting her lower lip thoughtfully, she let the trunk rise on its own.
The trunk was also crammed with trash. A bag of golf clubs was under s pile of filthy clothing. She stopped --the heads of the clubs were bent or broken off. Dark stains smeared across the metal shafts. If two years at the Hoffman Institute had taught her anything, it was that "dark stains" were universally never a good thing.
She spotted a set of leather straps crammed in one corner of the trunk. They were identical to the ones which had held the Bomb to the Homeless Man's chest -- she'd seen them up close, more than clse enough, thank you. Curious, she lifted them to her face. They were the source of the smell. They were... fresh. It was new leather, recently cured. The straps formed a ball, like a big ball of twine. She took one end, let the ball fall, unravelling.
Two of the longest straight-razors she'd ever seen tumbled out. Eight inches long, half-a-hand wide, long wooden handles. And all of them, every inch, spattered with dark stains.
Jo gulped, hard, then picked up the straps in one hand and one of the razors in the other. She closed her eyes. She'd been working on honing her curse. "Gift," some called it, but Jo remembered how she'd acquired it. She saw the looks everyone gave her. She's the one who had to take pills every hour of the day.
Curse.
She closed her eyes, concentrated on the objects in her hands. Pictured them. Then pictured them distorting the space around them. Stretching it. Sinking, like heavy weights on a rubber sheet, until the straps and razor were holes in the world, deep wells of blackness.
She let herself fall in, fall gently into the picture they would summon --
-- DaDDYNoOooWHaTRUDOINgAGHAGHaghGHBloodBLOODMAsterDAYFIVE STILL ALIVEthighboneconnectstotheotherthighBONETHINSTRIPS keepitMOISTAGGGGGHHHHHHH --
Jo fell backward and landed in the snow on the driveway with a gentle crunch.
TO BE CONTINUED
