The Immortal Coil Read online

  We were driving alongside the Hudson River and I could see a series of docks ahead. There were no medical buildings around here that I knew of. I finally spoke up. “I thought we were going to the hospital.”

  He didn’t answer me. Something was very wrong. The knot in my stomach tightened as we pulled onto the docks. The area was dark except for a few scattered lights along the pier, but I spotted a group of thin men in business suits up ahead. They were standing around watching as we came to a stop in front of them.

  Sergeant O’Donnell parked the car and got out, locking it behind him with me still in the backseat. The men greeted him and exchanged a few words that I wasn’t able to catch. They kept looking in the car, which creeped me out.

  There was a sudden gust of wind around the group, and out of nowhere another man appeared. This one had a much more muscular build than the rest of them. He was wearing only black shorts and boots that looked like they were armored or reinforced. The others looked taken aback by his sudden arrival. He showed them something that he held in his hand, which sent them into a panic.

  I wasn’t able to make out what the object was until some of them moved out of the way. It was a severed head belonging to one of the men in the group. Now I noticed the body it was missing from as it fell over. The shirtless man looked right at me and grinned before punting the head out into the water.

  He disappeared as fast as he had arrived. There was another gust of wind and the killer materialized just like before, this time holding two short katana dripping with blood at his sides. Behind him, the businessmen fell to pieces in a pile on the dock.

  I was a sitting duck in the police car. There was no way to unlock the doors from the back and a partition of bulletproof glasses separated me from the front. Sergeant O’Donnell was the only one left standing. He had his gun out and was taking aim at the back of the man’s head.

  The swordsman flipped both katana up in the air and sheathed them at his hips in one smooth movement. Sergeant O’Donnell opened fire, but none of the bullets hit. Somehow, the man dodged them all, barely moving a muscle or even turning around. His speed and reflexes were so phenomenal it was inhuman.

  Putting his arms behind his head, he stretched dramatically like he was inviting the sergeant to try again. His incredibly toned physique could put any of the world’s top fitness models to shame, let alone an amateur who had just booked his first job. In fact, this guy’s body was so perfectly sculpted he looked as if he had walked right off the cover of an elite bodybuilding magazine.

  Sergeant O’Donnell took another shot, but the man flicked the bullet right back at the cop’s forehead, killing him instantly. The man vanished for a split second and was in front of my door before I could blink. I had thought I was home free once I escaped the mutants, but now I was going to be killed by some sword-wielding psycho.

  The man ripped the car door off and threw it behind him like it was a toy. All I could do was stare in terror. Now that we were up close I could see he wasn’t much older than me, maybe in his mid-twenties at most. He had dark blond hair hanging almost to his cheekbones, and matching stubble. His angular features were rugged and masculine, yet his tan complexion was as flawless as if he had been airbrushed.

  He grinned and disappeared once again. I took the opportunity to flee the car. I wasn’t expecting to get far, but it was better than waiting around for him to end it. For some reason I stopped to stare at where the dead bodies were. But there was nothing there except piles of dust mixed with the suits they wore.

  “You’re welcome,” a voice called from above. I hadn’t even noticed him high up on a metal storage unit. His tone was filled with arrogance, and he seemed completely unfazed by all of the carnage he had caused.

  I weighed my options as I looked up at the man, who was crouching like a tiger ready to pounce. I noted several sets of tattoos on him that I hadn’t paid attention to before. They were all Asian characters, like he was part of a Japanese gang or cult, except he was clearly Caucasian. He had three symbols on his left pectoral, several rows lining his right flank, and more down his right forearm. One tattoo in particular stood out: a huge claw mark along his left flank that didn’t seem to fit the theme of the rest.

  I snapped out of my stupor, let adrenaline take over, and turned to run. My goal now was to get back to a main street where there would be people. I was almost off of the docks when I checked over my shoulder to see if he was following, but he was nowhere in sight. There was an alley between two warehouses only a few yards away that looked like it would take me out to the street.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a dead body before.” He appeared before me as I turned down the alley. It almost sounded like he was teasing me. I froze in place and just stared at him as he blocked my way. He crossed his arms patiently and leaned against the wall to my left. “Not the talkative type, I guess,” he said, mocking me again. He began advancing toward me with a macho swagger in his walk. It reminded me of a rock star showing off to his audience. I glanced at the weapons hanging at his side and began to back away nervously while keeping my eyes upon him.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not going to kill you. Just make this easy on yourself and come with me.” My head started swirling from the sound of his words. It felt like something was taking over my mind and making it hard to run away.

  He was around six-two or three, but seemed giant by comparison when we stood toe to toe. The unnatural hypnotic feeling grew as I stood there paralyzed. I could feel him looking down at me while I did my best to avoid direct eye contact. Grabbing my face, he forced me to focus on him and flashed a devilish smirk.

  His deep green eyes squinted intensely as I felt him peering into my soul. My head began to fill with an even stronger, more disarming sensation than before. The inner voice that had been screaming inside, telling me to flee, was silent now. I was drowning in a dangerous sense of complacency as my survival instinct melted away.

  The sound of a police siren blaring behind me was followed by blinding light and a familiar voice shouting. I jerked away to look over my shoulder and saw Officer Turner approaching.

  I was happy he had survived, but if he wasn’t already suspicious of me, he had more than enough reason to be now.

  Regaining a lucid state, I turned back around, but the mysterious swordsman was gone. If not for the headlights of Officer Turner’s car illuminating the dark alley, I wouldn’t have noticed the cop’s latest injuries. His nose was bloody and quite possibly broken.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, still anxious to leave the area as soon as possible.

  “Where’s the officer that took you here?” he asked, successfully countering my question with a better one of his own.

  “Down by the water.” I pointed in the direction of the massacre.

  “Is he dead?” I was a little surprised he jumped to that conclusion.

  “Yes, but for the record, I didn’t do it,” I answered frantically. “Some guy with two swords killed a whole bunch of people, including the sergeant. We have to leave or he’s going to kill us too.”

  Officer Turner looked completely desensitized, most likely from shock. “Take me to the sergeant.”

  “We’re going to die! How did you know where I would be anyway?” I asked.

  “Police GPS told me where the sergeant’s car was parked,” he explained. “I spotted you without him, so I assumed the worst.”

  “The worst for who, me or him?”

  “There was no reason for him to be all the way down here,” he continued. “If there was trouble he would have called it in to dispatch, unless he was already dead.”

  “Not to push my luck, but it sounds like you think I killed the sergeant and stole his car, so why aren’t you arresting me?” Jail might really be the better option at this point. At least I’d be safe there.

  “If there is a dead body where you’re taking me, then we’ll talk about arrest.” I wasn’t sure I followed h
is logic, but he definitely knew something he wasn’t saying.

  The police cruiser was just how I had left it, but something wasn’t right. The pile of men’s suits was gone, as was the officer’s corpse. There wasn’t any blood or signs of a struggle, not that it was much of a struggle to begin with.

  I was expecting to be questioned about the disappearing evidence, but instead Officer Turner took out his flashlight and began investigating the area.

  “They were right here, I don’t understand.” I swore to myself.

  I began to search with him. Not that I wanted to find a dead body, but more to make sure I hadn’t lost my sanity yet.

  “Let’s go,” he said after finishing his search of the sergeant’s car and recovering his empty gun.

  “You seem like you were anticipating this.” Now I was starting to become suspicious of him.

  “The only thing I knew for certain was that it was going to be something weird,” he answered as we made our way back to his car.

  “So, you aren’t going to arrest me?”

  “No reason to yet. Get in and I’ll explain.”

  We sat in silence for a minute as he drove us out to Eleventh Avenue. I looked out the passenger window at the city lights. Seeing normal people on the sidewalk helped restore my sense of safety.

  Officer Turner was the first to speak. “Describe in as much detail as you can remember what happened once you left the apartment.”

  Recalling the whole scenario was more difficult than it should have been. Everything was so surreal. I must have been in shock myself, because I was having trouble talking about things that happened just a few minutes ago. He did a good job humoring me, though.

  “No offense and not to sound ungrateful, but I’m surprised you’re even listening to my side of things. I figured the only thing you would care about is what your fellow officers had to say and how bad this looks.”

  “You’re innocent until proven guilty. It’s my job not to be biased. There’s always more than one side to a story and right now something else is bothering me a lot more.

  “Once you left I took the officers to the room we locked the man in, but he was gone. When we ran into another one of the CDC workers, the officers didn’t seem alarmed at all. Instead, they jumped me and tried feeding me to it. I managed to get away when more of the mutants ambushed us, and that’s when I remembered the sergeant was with you.

  “Like I said before, there was no reason for him to be down here with you and no way he dropped you at the hospital and made it to the docks that fast. Sure, you could have killed him and stolen the car, but if you were a cold-blooded killer you would have left me to die in that apartment.”

  He was interrupted by the dispatcher on the police radio spewing official-sounding jargon. The part that caught my attention was as clear as day, though.

  “All units — we have an officer down and one wounded from gunfire at the Westfield Apartments on 81st and Lexington Ave. The perp has been identified as Officer Lyle Turner and was last seen leaving the scene in his police car. A warrant for his arrest has been issued. Subject is armed and dangerous. Proceed with extreme caution.”

  We both stared at the radio as the broadcast repeated several times before he switched it off.

  “Is that true?” I asked, but was already pretty sure he couldn’t have done something like that. He seemed like too much of a good guy.

  “No, they must have radioed that in to cover themselves. If I had gone to straighten this out with my captain first, then I would never have known why you and the sergeant were down here. It just didn’t sit right with me.”

  “Well, thanks for coming back for me and everything.” He definitely deserved a medal for going above and beyond.

  “You don’t have to thank me, but I appreciate it. I’m beginning to get used to people treating the police like the bad guys. I joined the force to protect others and be a hero, but most people don’t see us as that.”

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked. “Can’t they use GPS to find your car?”

  We pulled over and parked on a quiet residential street. I looked over at him as he rested his head on the steering wheel.

  “Uh, Officer Turner?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just call me Lyle,” he said, though his answer wasn’t reassuring. “We’re going on foot from here. I only took the car to get to safety as fast as possible.”

  Lyle got out and retrieved a backpack from the trunk. He got in the backseat, where he pulled street clothes out of his bag and changed while I checked my pockets for my phone and wallet. I noticed he had the same charger as mine plugged into the dashboard.

  “You should probably go to the hospital; you might have a concussion and broken nose,” I advised.

  “Going to the hospital isn’t the best idea. Hospitals are usually one of the first places we check when canvassing an area, especially if the suspect might have sustained injuries,” he said. He climbed back into the driver’s seat dressed in blue jeans, an NYPD T-shirt, and a Yankees baseball hat. “We should get you checked out. Dispatch hasn’t mentioned anything about you over the radio, so there isn’t a warrant out for you yet.”

  “I just want to go home. My dad is an emergency room doctor back in Boston. I doubt we’re infected; the CDC workers turned within a couple of hours of being there and it’s been longer than that for us.”

  We got out of the car and began walking up the block. He left his phone behind so it couldn’t be traced and let me take the charger. I thought about all the people we passed and wished I were as ignorant as they were about everything going on. We stopped in a store so he could pick up a prepaid phone. He paid in cash, and we moved on.

  “There’s something we still need to talk about,” he said.

  Here it comes, I thought. I guess this couldn’t be avoided any longer. The elephant in the room had finally had enough of being ignored.

  “What was that thing you did with the swords in the apartment?”

  “It’s just something I’m able to do. I don’t know how or why it works,” I answered truthfully. The full extent of my power remained a mystery to me.

  “That’s a little more than a bar trick. I’m assuming the sergeant’s missing car door was your doing?”

  “No, the guy with the katana I told you about did that. I didn’t think I’d even be able to lift something as heavy as the swords in the apartment.”

  “He can move stuff with his mind too?”

  “No, he did it with his hands.” I knew I must sound like a mental patient off of his meds. I contemplated lying about the whole thing.

  “How long ago did you find out you could do this?”

  “When I was fifteen.” This was already the most I had ever spoken about it with anyone, but I felt he deserved some explanation after everything.

  Back when my power first manifested, I’d woken up in a cold sweat from a nightmare, staring into the mirror opposite my bed. I could hear the mirror start to crack before it completely shattered on my dresser. Not sure if I was still dreaming, I went to pick up the pieces. Once my hand was just over the shards, they began to float just slightly above the dresser. I inspected them in disbelief, not knowing I was the one causing this to happen. Whenever I would motion like I was picking them up, they would rise and then fall when I would stop.

  I saved some of the broken pieces in my drawer for the next morning, so I could practice again. I wore the safety goggles we used in chemistry class just in case something went wrong. It wasn’t only those pieces I could move. Small objects around me would randomly start to move or float wherever I was. It took a few months, but I got better at controlling it a little at a time. The more I focused and the more clearly I could see the object, the easier it was to lift. Something across the room wasn’t as easy as an object right in front of my eyes.

  In less than a year, I was able to balance multiple small objects in the air as long as I could keep my eyes on them. Fine manipulation was always a p
roblem; stuff like folding a sheet of paper always ended in my tearing or crumpling it.

  “Do your parents know about this?” I could sense the curiosity growing in his voice.

  “No, nobody but you knows. They worry a lot to begin with. Being doctors themselves, they would want a million tests done to see what was wrong with me.

  “I was always careful about practicing when no one was home or I was sure I couldn’t be seen. I didn’t mess around with it much anymore once I got it under control. I used to excuse myself to use the bathroom in class all the time when I noticed papers or pens start moving, or leave the dinner table when I would have to grab the salt shaker out of the air before my parents noticed. I would never hurt anyone though. I try to stay away from people as much as possible. Back there in the apartment was the first time anything violent happened.”

  “Good to know. I’m trying to get a feeling for why the people at the dock would try and kidnap you and how the sergeant is involved if nobody knows what you can do,” he said.

  “Kidnap?” The thought hadn’t crossed my mind until now, but it made sense. “The guy who killed them was acting like he did me a favor. He was trying to get me to go with him.”

  “I know you want to go back to Boston. Hell, if this wasn’t my only home I’d want to be far away from this mess too. I don’t know what’s going on or how any of this can even be real.”

  “You’re dealing with this better than I am.” I shoved my hands in my pockets to stop them from trembling now that the adrenaline rush was over. “I bet you never thought you’d be involved in all of this when you became a cop. How long have you been on the force? I remember that fat cop calling you a rookie.”

  “Three years. Three years and I already probably put an end to my career and my freedom. My father must be rolling in his grave.” I must have really struck a nerve. I was trying to cheer him up at how savvy he was for being new, but I guess as optimistic as he seemed, it was still bothering him. “I come from a family of cops, all NYPD,” he continued. “That’s all I wanted to be for as long as I can remember.”