“For the most part, yeah. Good news for you is this, Jake: I’m not after you here.”
“Really? God told you I’m okay?” Jake said, sneering.
“I don’t have a direct line to God, Jake. What I’ve been given doesn’t work that way. When I’m the Judge- it’s like I can see things as a series of scales, balances, clocks and gears in motion. When I took down those punks who were hurting Monty? About to kill him? All those guys deserved what they got from me. All of them. Down to the last tap on their spine. Now, as for you gentlemen,” Gideon stood up. They all moved back just a hair or two- Gideon was a large, bearded, imposing figure of a man even when he wasn’t a supernatural avenger of justice. “I get to say that what you pulled off in terms of thievery is actually going to serve the cause of law, in its own way.”
“Do tell, woudja? Mebbe we can tell it to the cops when they come git us,” Mitch said.
“Gladly. Everything you’ve taken is insured; cash, jewelry, the lot of it. However, there are exactly five pieces of jewelry in your take that are precious family heirlooms, which belong to just people that have done no wrong significant enough to merit their loss. I’m here to collect those pieces. Once I have them, I’ll be leaving you gentlemen to your own devices.”
“How kind.” I will say there is an agent of the law who is aware of you, and he’s coming. Now, Though beyond that I can’t know. If you’d kindly take me to your loot, I’ll acquire the needed pieces- they practically glow and call out to me; I’ll have no trouble finding them- and I’ll be off to do my errands for the day, returning them anonymously.”
“Therefore- I can assume you are not going to pummel us with your hammer, or otherwise abuse us?”
Gideon looked steadily at Monty. “I never abuse anyone, Montressor. I give them only the precise amount of pain and punishment which they are due according to their deeds. And you haven’t done anything thus far to warrant my attentions. Be sure you keep it that way. And watch out for Miguel over there- the places he chooses to get his beer from aren’t always the best.”
“Shut up, gringo. Remember how I bailed you out?”
Gideon looked at them all, and smiled. “Miguel here saved me once. I’d gotten in over my head- it happens. I ran up against what I thought was a simple cult of freaks who liked to hurt runaways. I was-overconfident. When I confronted them it turned out they were more than a bunch of traffickers; their leader was an honest-to-goodness sorcerer, not some pretender in dark robes and pretentious chants, but a genuinely dangerous man with ties to seriously dangerous demons.
“He summoned some entities that did some serious harm to me; I was dying, my spirit form wounded so badly that my old knife wound had opened up again, and I was bleeding out in an alley. I thought I was done for, until…”
“Until I showed up. I had a little relic of my own. A prayer and a touch from it stopped the bleeding, and a visit to a local mass cleaned out the rest.”
“I find that to be- improbable at best.”
“Monty, man, you don’ know much about this, you know?”
“Miguel, I am a man of science. That means . . .”
“That means you tinker with your crap all day, and you still believe it’s gonna pay off when it never does. If that ain't faith, I dunno what is. At least my auela would get what she prayed for on her rosary. Vamos, now we have to figure out how to help Jane. Those baby heroes have her, and I don’t think they’re gonna give her up just because we drive up to their door and ask.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Maybe they will…” Jake said. “How about this…”
#
Jason, aka Prime, lolled on the floor in a dazed haze, his glassy eyes staring at the ceiling. His face was peaceful, with the dull insensibility that came with waking up without an alarm clock after a long sleep.
Several small explosions blew apart the floor near his head, making quarter-sized craters in a steady, connect-the-dots line. When they reached Jason’s head they kept progressing, tapping his skin and making ripples in the flesh but no other effect other than to make him blink suddenly, and then his gaze returned to the blank, drugged stare he’d had seconds before.
The red light of the base’s alert status bathed his face in a flashing, crimson hue. A repetitive, monotonous voice above repeated the words ‘Alert, alert, alert, alert’ over and over again while more small explosions ripped into the walls and floor.
“Y’all need t’get some more target practice in, boy,” Jane shouted from behind the cafeteria table she’d tipped up and over to act as her cover. She was lounging with her back the the table, facing the wall in front of her, looking over one of her pistols with no more concern that a gardener would have over a plant frond that needed trimming. “I been nice, but I think ah’m gonna have ta punch yer ticket the next shot if’n y’all don’t gimme mah check an’ get outta my way.” As if to emphasize the point, she reached up with her pistol, pointing it behind her while still sitting down and pulling the trigger with her thumb, squeezing off three shots and then lowering it again to reload.
Henry ducked down and cursed himself for being stupid while the walls above him popped and exploded, new dimples and crater appearing where the bullets from the old lady’s pistols hit, rebounded and made new pocks and holes.
“Not too bad, little boy, you’re faster’n you look. But if’n I really wanted to, I could take you out pretty quick.”
Henry bolted down every urge that suddenly surfaced to scream curse words at the top of his lungs. He checked his wrist computer again- was there any chance that the rest of them could see this? No, the whole thing was on lockdown, a calm loop of nothing showing on the monitors in the central hall, assuming anyone was watching to begin with.
Crap. How was he going to contain this?
#
“Good Morning, this is Homestead, the headquarters of the Guardians of Truth. Today’s tours are temporarily suspended due to unforeseen circumstances. This is Judy, how may I direct your call?”
Jake waggled his eyebrows at the others in the room, his finger still at the yellow pages entry for the tourist section of the baby-heroes’ hq. “Why hel-lo Judy!” he said with a brash, confident air, “Are you the same Judy I had the pleasure of dealing with last year?”
“That may be so, sir. I’ve been here as one of their secretaries and schedulers for thirteen months now.”
“Well that is just swell to hear, honey. You did such a good job with us last year I said to mah-self, I sure do hope that when I call today, that I get to talk to Judy again.”
“Well, thank you for that, sir! I’m glad I was able to help you effectively. What can I do for you today?”
“Well, Judy- can I call you Judy?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Well, that makes me happier’n a bird in a windtunnel. See, I’m opening up a new oil platform in the next year, and I loved how professional your security boys there were. Do you folks have in-house guards, or do you folks contract out?”
“Oh, we have the best service in the city, Mr.- sorry, what was your name again?”
“Josephus Aloysius Zwallarimenienski esquire, mah dear Judy. Don’t fret, no one remembers it until they hear it for the fourth or fifth time. Sorry, but what was the name of that firm again? Was it Sentinel or Paragon?”
“Sentinel, Mr… Mr Joseph?”
Jake gave a big, barrel laugh. “Don’t you fret, Miss Judy. Now, I hope those heroes don’t mind, but once I get the platform operational, I just might be calling you up to offer you a job, ‘cause with the way you put up with me, whatever they’re paying you, honey, it ain’t enough!”
#
TO BE CONTINUED...