The Unification Chronicles

19: Elec­tro­cu­tion in Philadelphia

[scene with Jack try­ing to con­vince the Philly PD that no, really, he’s chas­ing a ter­ror­ist, not just assault­ing neigh­bor­hood dogs; cops leave Jack to his own devices]

#

Daniel stood next to the power sta­tion. It was fully night, now, and they had no idea where Batarel was. He should have found them by now.

“Any sign of him,” he said into the walkie talkie.

“Noth­ing here,” Jeff said.

“Noth­ing here either,” Susan said.

Daniel was start­ing to think this was a dumb idea. What made them think they could make an immor­tal walk into a tra—

“Cho.”

He knew that voice by now and it stopped him cold. He was here. But still, Daniel couldn’t see him. He had to be just beyond the edge of the lights.

“Batarel.”

The demon didn’t reply, so Daniel couldn’t deter­mine the loca­tion from the sound.

“He’s here!” Daniel said into the walkie talkie. As soon as he spoke, a knife flew at his head from the dark.

“Shit!” he said, drop­ping and rolling away. He heard Jeff and Susan run­ning towards him just as he saw Batarel step out of the dark­ness. Some­how he wasn’t sur­prised to see that the demon was walk­ing into a fight with them while wear­ing another designer suit.

He heard a bang as he was get­ting up, and saw a bright red hole appear in Batarel’s shirt. The demon didn’t even slow down.

“This is even more pathetic than the last attempt,” Batarel said. “I take it this is an elab­o­rate ruse to elec­tro­cute me? Let me get that out of the way.” He walked over to one of the tow­ers, hopped up to the low­est run, a good ten feet off the ground, and climbed until get to a live wire. Look­ing back down to make sure they were still watch­ing, he reached out and grabbed the wire in his hand.

Sparks shot a hun­dred feet in the air and Daniel heard thun­der­ing bangs from the capac­i­tors behind him. The lights went out, and Daniel could see that all the house­lights were out in all the nearby houses.

Batarel dropped back to the ground, charred and still smok­ing. What was left of his hair was stick­ing straight out, and his suit was in tat­ters. But in spite of that, he was smiling.

“My turn,” he said. He snapped a leg out and caught Daniel in the mid­sec­tion, knock­ing the wind out of him and throw­ing him back­wards a dozen feet.

Jeff brought up a shot­gun and unloaded in the demon’s chest. “Susie, get in the car!” he said. Susan was stand­ing just off to the side, get­ting it all on camera.

The demon grabbed the shot­gun out of Jeff’s hand and hit him across the jaw with the stock. “There’s no need for that,” Batarel said. “You’re not get­ting away this time.”

Daniel rushed him, and fell to the ground again as the demon eas­ily side­stepped him. “We’re not doing this again,” Batarel said. “But I’m not about to make it quick and easy, either. Not after the trou­ble you’ve caused me.”

The demon turned the shot­gun around and aimed it at Susan. Daniel was just ris­ing to his feet when he heard the shot.

#

Jack looked down the bar­rel of his pis­tol, cordite pun­gent in the night air. Instead of drop­ping from the ten mil­lime­ter slug in his back, Hen­driks turned around, almost casually.

“A new face!” he said. “Or, wait, I know you. Didn’t I kill you last night?”

“Drop the weapon freak!”

“Or what, offi­cer? All you’ve done is ensure you share their fate.”

Jack fired again, this time a head shot. The back of Hendriks’s skull exploded in a red mist, and Jack could clearly see through the hole as the man raised his shot­gun in return.

“Oh shit,” Jack said as he dove for the ground. He actu­ally felt the pel­lets pass by over his back.

“Hey, Batarel.” Cho said. Jack looked up to see Cho swing­ing a fuck­ing Samu­rai sword with one hand at the demon, chop­ping off the arm hold­ing the shot­gun just below the shoulder.

“Oh,” Hen­driks said. “You’re going to pay extra for that.”

Jack got back up and shouted at Cho. “Stand back!” As Cho hopped away, he emp­tied a clip into Hendriks’s cen­ter mass. With the man’s back turned, to him, he could actu­ally see the hole in the back of his head seal­ing up. The brain expand­ing to refill the cranium.

What in the holy fuck is this? Jack thought. He’d seen perps on PCP or meth shake off what should have been dis­abling wounds. He’d seen men in Iraq crawl to safety miss­ing limbs. But he’d never seen any­one who could do—

“Head’s up, Agent Har­ris!” Cho said as he swung the sword again, aim­ing to sever the head from the neck. This time Hen­driks ducked, and the sword only caught his hair, skim­ming across the scalp. Hell, Jack thought, even that should have hurt enough to put him down.

From his lower stance, Hen­driks lashed out with a kick that caught Cho squarely in the cast. Cho went down screaming.

The old man had got­ten back up, and lev­eled an auto­matic at Hen­driks. “Susie, I ain’t telling you again. Get in the damn car!” He emp­tied a clip in Hen­driks, which knocked him back just enough for Frankel to get Cho’s arm over his shoul­der. “We’re bug­ging out, girl! Get!”

Richard­son ran past Jack. “Sorry, Agent Har­ris!” she said.

Jack slapped another clip into his pis­tol and started fir­ing at Hen­driks again, just try­ing to keep him off bal­ance. He wasn’t aim­ing for cen­ter mass now, but try­ing to take out kneecaps, hit the shoul­der and spin him around, any­thing to buy time.

Frankel and Cho limped past him. “Much obliged, sir,” Frankel said.

This is, with­out a doubt, Jack thought, the weird­est night I’ve ever had.

He could hear sirens in the dis­tance, faint red and blue lights vis­i­ble in the black­out. “You can’t leave me here with him!” he said. He heard Richard­son fire up the Crown Vic he’d seen com­ing in.

“Sorry, Agent, but we don’t have much choice!” Frankel said, eas­ing Cho into the back seat. “Sounds like help’s on the way, though!”

The door shut, Jack popped another cou­ple rounds into Hen­driks, and the Crown Vic pulled away, lights off and nearly invis­i­ble in the black­out. They were using him, and his gun­fire, as a dis­trac­tion to slip past the police. He had to give them credit, they were resou—

Hen­driks leapt at him and Jack fired another shot as he dodged. But Hen­driks wasn’t attack­ing him. He was just vault­ing over him and try­ing to chase down the Crown Vic on foot. And until they shifted into third, he had a shot at it.

The sirens were much closer now, and Jack didn’t want to try to explain this. He slunk off into the night him­self, going the oppo­site way he’d seen Hen­driks run. No sense tempt­ing fate.