Fractures: Caulborn 4 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Author’s Note

  Also by Nicholas Olivo

  Fractures

  Copyright © 2016 by Nicholas Olivo All rights reserved.

  First Edition: June 2016

  www.nicholasolivo.com

  Editing by: Holloway House Editing and Proofreading

  hollowayhouse.me

  Cover and Formatting by: Streetlight Graphics

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  In my line of work, you wind up fighting a lot of dead things. Vampires, zombies, ghouls, wights, nasty stuff like that. This, though, was the first time I found myself fighting something I’d seen die just a few days earlier. The Black Flash, a creature with the ability to teleport between dimensions, had vaporized itself by slamming its body into an electric containment field. Yet here it was, back in the flesh and trying to slash me apart with its claws.

  The Black Flash stood just over seven feet tall and was covered in shiny black skin. Its ears came up to points, and the overall shape of its head made me think of Batman’s mask. It was fast and strong, and could teleport and breathe fire. It spat a blue fireball at me, which would have taken me right between the eyes if I hadn’t nudged it aside with a quick burst of kobold elemental magic. I was going to have to be fast. If we couldn’t get Mr. Albert’s containment field up and running again, there’s no telling what sort of hell might be unleashed on Boston.

  Okay, hang on. Let me back up a bit.

  About an hour ago, I was in my apartment, enjoying a delicious, nutritious breakfast consisting of Lucky Charms and a Pepsi, when I felt an extradimensional ping, like a faint chime in my mind. It was coming from the octahedron, a little artifact I’d picked up recently that sends out those pings every hour on the hour. The octahedron was sitting innocently on my kitchen table, right next to the cereal box.

  A few days ago, I’d used it as sort of a beacon to lure the Black Flash into a trap by keying the octahedron to the Black Flash’s energy signatures. The Black Flash had heard the octahedron’s pings and responded with pings of its own, alerting me to its approach. Gearstripper, Kristin, and I were then able to trap it in a containment field.

  This morning, when the octahedron sent out its ping, I was stunned when I heard a second, much fainter ping in reply. That was exactly what I’d heard when the Black Flash had been approaching.

  I really wanted to use a newfound power and Open a portal right then and there to see what was going on. But I’d gotten on a lot of people’s bad sides lately by acting first and thinking later, so instead, I pulled out my phone and called Kristin. I filled her in, and we agreed to meet at Caulborn HQ.

  I went into Kristin’s office and found her shrugging out of her yellow and orange hazmat suit. Underneath it, she wore a dark blue sweater and gray slacks, and her salt-and-pepper braid hung over one shoulder. “All right, Vincent,” she said. “Let’s have you create one of those little peephole-sized portals so we can look around.” We had to go outside behind the building for me to create a portal, as HQ is warded against extradimensional gates. Can’t have the baddies just teleporting in whenever they feel like it, after all.

  My breath misted in the cold air as I focused on where I’d sensed the pings and opened the peephole. Kristin and I were looking in on what appeared to be a large, unfinished basement. I moved the peephole up into a corner so we could see the entire room. The walls were concrete and lined with metal wire shelving, and exposed florescent lighting hung from the ceiling. The Black Flash, very much alive, and not the puddle of goo I’d last seen, was turning translucent and then solid again as it tried unsuccessfully to teleport out of a containment field.

  “Okay,” Kristin said as she ran a hand over her face. “That’s not the containment field Gears put together, and that’s not Woof’s, so where is this place?” We’d trapped the Black Flash in an abandoned restaurant called Woof’s, down in the Undercity. Security staff from Ashgate prison had been with us, and the plan had been to relocate the creature to the prison. That is until it had—from what we had witnessed—liquefied itself.

  “Who else knew about the Black Flash?” I asked. “Someone from Ashgate?”

  Kristin shook her head as she continued to examine the scene through the peephole. “That containment field looks like it’s been cobbled together from spare parts. Ashgate has better equipment than that. So who else could it be?”

  “Mr. Albert,” we said in unison. Mr. Albert was the proprietor of a curios shop called Oddities; he was the person who’d sold me the octahedron. The price was for him to watch the octahedron in action, as it had only ever been a minor curiosity to him.

  As if on cue, a door in the far wall opened, and the undead shopkeeper shuffled through. Mr. Albert was a bit shorter than I am, with pudgy cheeks, thinning hair, and pinpricks of red light where his pupils should be. We weren’t sure what manner of undead he was, but up until this moment, he was a citizen of the Undercity in good standing. How had he managed this? The containment field he’d rigged up was a mismatched amalgamation of bits of other artifacts and relics; it was the kind of thing Gearstripper would’ve thrown together if he didn’t have the chance to do a thorough job.

  We watched as Albert observed the Black Flash for a few moments, occasionally jotting some notes down in a journal he produced from his pocket. The shopkeeper pursed his lips and clucked his tongue as he did so. Then he checked on a few of the pylons containing the Black Flash. One of them sparked, and the room’s lights dimmed. I saw the containment field flickering, and sensed the Black Flash gathering up enough power to teleport away. But Mr. Albert hastily made some adjustments, and whatever he did restored the field to its full strength. Or at least that’s what I’m guessing happened, since the creature didn’t teleport. Mr. Albert gave a self-satisfied nod before leaving the room. All the while, the Black Flash raged, trying to teleport and spitting balls of blue flame at Albert, which dissipated harmlessly against the containment field, before resorting to slamming itself into the field over and over again.

  I closed the portal and turned to Kristin. “You saw the security footage Gearstripper had, right?”

  She nodded. “The Black Flash killed itself trying to escape Ashgate’s containment field.”

  “What’s the likelihood it respawned?” I asked.

  “I didn’t get the feeling it was part phoenix, Vincent,” Kristin said with a smile. “C’mon. I’m going to clear this with Galahad, and then we can go visit our favorite curios shop.” After a quick call to the boss, we were portaling into the Undercity, just outside of Oddities. A bell rang as we opened the door, and a Muzak version of “Yellow Submarine” greeted us. The shop was just as I remembered it, tons and tons of tri
nkets, knickknacks, tchotchkes, or whatever you want to call junk lined shelf after shelf. Mr. Albert came out of the back room, a huge smile on his face.

  “Agents,” he said. “It is good to see you again.” His grin widened. “Perhaps you’ve come to my shop to take me on another adventure?”

  “Not this time, Mr. Albert,” Kristin replied. “It seems the last adventure hasn’t quite ended for you yet.”

  Mr. Albert’s smile vanished. “Whatever do you mean, Agent Tanis?”

  “She means,” I said, “that you’ve got the Black Flash in your basement. Care to tell us how it got there?”

  Now, in the movies, this is the part where the bad guy would craft some subtle lie or at least be a good enough actor to appear confused or surprised or… something. I’d been mentally gearing up for a showdown during which Mr. Albert would whip out some horrific talisman of immense eldritch power and shout, “The Black Flash is mine!” before unloading black lightning at us, Sith style.

  Instead, Mr. Albert’s face fell. “Nuts,” was all he said.

  Kristin and I gave each other a quick glance. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?” Kristin asked.

  “No,” he sighed, shoulders slumped. “It’s in the lower store room. Follow me.” He beckoned for us to follow and led us down a set of stairs to the room we’d viewed through my peephole. Inside, the pylons hummed and the Black Flash’s raging went up a notch as it saw me. Guess it held a grudge. “I was absolutely fascinated by this creature, Agents,” Mr. Albert said. “It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, or even heard of. I’ve been studying it since you fought it, Agent Corinthos, and it’s amazing. This creature seems to possess a very limited intelligence, but the extradimensional power levels it has access to is nothing short of extraordinary. If my calculations are correct, it could teleport between planes of reality with next to no effort. What’s odd is that I can’t determine why the creature would have developed such an ability. Given its ferocity, it can’t be a need to escape from predators. I’ve taken some notes—”

  “Mr. Albert,” Kristin cut in. “How did you get the Black Flash in here? We have security footage of it being liquefied against the containment field we set up. Ashgate staff witnessed its death. How is it still alive?”

  Mr. Albert cleared his throat. “Ah. Well. You see, I have a very, very limited ability to create illusions.” He held his thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart. “Nothing that your cauls wouldn’t let you see right through, but those boys from Ashgate, well, they weren’t Caulborn, were they? I crafted an illusion of the Black Flash’s demise and then placed it into a state of suspended animation. Then I brought it back here, under another illusion spell, of course, and rigged up a containment field of my own.”

  “How did you place it in suspended animation?” Kristin asked.

  Albert spread his arms. “There are dozens of trinkets in my shop that have wondrous powers,” he said. “I’m going to take an artifact out of my jacket pocket, Agent Tanis. I will give it to you. No funny business.” Very deliberately, Mr. Albert produced a yellow crystal about the length and width of a pencil and passed it over to Kristin. “I keep that one on me as a matter of personal protection, no different from the batons you carry, Agent Tanis. The ability to quickly immobilize another person is handy when you have no true power.” The last part of that sentence almost came out wistfully, and I wondered if there was more to the shopkeeper’s story.

  I didn’t get a chance to ask, because that was when one of the pylons containing the Black Flash began sparking, then burst into flame. The containment field flickered, and the Black Flash drove its fist through the weakened barrier and struck me in the chest. The field hadn’t weakened enough for the creature to step through, but it was enough to let it get in a lucky shot. The Black Flash was forced back inside the field as I went sailing backward into a shelf, its contents shattering all around me. I retaliated blindly, sending out a burst of telekinetic force that penetrated the containment field and caught the Black Flash on the jaw. I followed my psychic uppercut with a lance of pyrokinetic flame and then rushed forward.

  “What are you doing, Corinthos?” Kristin hollered.

  I stopped short, globes of fire and force pulsing around my fists. I’d been about to just rush into the containment field and start throwing fiery punches. I shook my head. This was getting out of control. I took a breath and released the power I was holding. Mr. Albert had adjusted the pylon, and the containment field appeared to have stabilized.

  With an effort, I was able to speak without my voice shaking. “We need to get this thing someplace more secure. If that pylon goes out again, it’ll teleport away.”

  “Not to worry, Agents,” he said. “This whole room is warded against teleportation. The field is just so it can’t kill me while I make my observations.”

  Kristin hadn’t taken her eyes off me. She’d read me the riot act a couple of days ago about acting without thinking. I’d been working on that, but when the Black Flash had hit me, I’d lost it. I took a breath and nodded at her, hoping she’d understand I had things back under control. “That’s great, Mr. Albert,” I said. “Just the same, Ashgate is a much better place to hold a creature—”

  The pylon exploded. Shards of metal ricocheted around me, driving into my thigh, slashing across my face. Being so close to the pylon, I took the brunt of the blast. A distant part of me knew that was a good thing. After all, I heal a lot faster than Kristin. Just the same, I howled with pain and threw up a telekinetic shield. Too late for the shrapnel, but just in time to stop the Black Flash’s claws from taking my face off.

  Mr. Albert fumbled a second piece of yellow crystal out of his pocket and aimed it at the Black Flash, but the creature lunged at him and swatted the crystal from his hands. It shattered against the concrete floor, and the Black Flash brought its claws down for the kill.

  That would have been the end of the undead shopkeeper, but the Black Flash suddenly lurched as if struck and slammed into the ground. From the guttural snarling, I guessed that Mist, Kristin’s fylgiar, had joined the fight. Having a super-strong invisible dog-spirit on your side is quite handy in times of crisis. The Black Flash grappled with empty air, then snarled and made a heaving motion. The breeze of Mist sailing through the air ruffled the top of my hair, and I winced as I heard the fylgiar hit the ground.

  Okay, think. The last time I’d fought the Black Flash, telekinesis had slid right off of it, but I’d immobilized it by encasing it in shards of broken dishes. I telekinetically grabbed a rack behind the creature and heaved. Little artifacts flew everywhere as the rack ripped from the wall with an ear-splitting shriek of metal. I twisted the metal with my mind, wrapping it around the Black Flash like a vise. It thrashed and kicked out, but I latched onto the makeshift cage and levitated it a few feet above the ground, making sure to keep the fire-spitting end pointed away from the rest of us.

  “All righty, then,” I said, flicking sweat from my forehead. “That was fun.”

  Kristin nodded as she pulled out her phone. “Indeed. I’ll call Ashgate and have them send out a detail. The sooner we can contain—”

  The Black Flash roared with a ferocity I’d never heard before and stretched its body in such a way that it forced the metal cage to untwist, with an equally ear-piercing shriek. It surged forward, slashing at me with its claws. I jumped backward, and it spat a blue fireball at me, which I nudged aside with a quick burst of kobold elemental magic. The fireball popped against the far wall, and the Black Flash launched itself at me. Operating on instinct, my Olympian steel switchblade dropped from my sleeve into my waiting palm, and I drove the glowing blue blade into the Black Flash’s chest. The creature spasmed once, then sagged, all its weight suddenly falling against me. I stumbled back, yanking the knife free as the Black Flash collapsed to the floor, blue liquid flowing from its chest.r />
  Kristin pursed her lips. “Change in plans. I’ll contact Jake and have him get over here with the ambulance.”

  “Are you all right, Agent Corinthos?” Mr. Albert asked.

  I grimaced as my temperature spiked. Tiny bits of metal pushed their way up through my thigh, out my jeans, and plinked onto the floor. My healing fever was going full steam now. And Mrs. Rita was right; it did seem to be getting faster. “Fine,” I said, closing my switchblade and tucking it up my sleeve.

  “And the Black Flash?” The undead shopkeeper asked.

  “Pretty sure it’s dead,” I said. The body had stopped bleeding, the blue blood looking almost like a pool of antifreeze on the ground. The odd thing, though, was that the Black Flash’s chest showed no sign of injury. There should’ve been a mark an inch long from my blade, but nothing. I relayed this to Kristin. “Is it healing?”

  “Mist says it’s definitely dead,” Kristin replied. “But I want Doc Ryan to look at this thing. While I call him, Vincent, would you mind getting more details from Mr. Albert? The usual stuff.”

  Mr. Albert and I went into the shopkeeper’s office. The room was just a bit bigger than a walk-in closet, and the walls were covered in Beatles paraphernalia. There was an autographed photo of Ringo Starr, a poster of the Beatles walking across Abbey Road, a glass case that contained what looked like a pair of John Lennon’s glasses, and a guitar autographed by Paul McCartney. A speaker mounted in the corner was playing “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” A filing cabinet, a small table, and two folding chairs were the room’s only furnishings. Mr. Albert took one chair and motioned for me to take the other. “Shouldn’t we do this at the Undercity police station?” he asked.