Necessary Evil and the Greater Good - A novel

Necessary Evil and the Greater Good - Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The City of Your Final Destination

At first, there was the sound of shifting glass shards, creaking metal, and the ticking of the cooling engine. Then other sounds broke through the veil of dulled consciousness, and Stephanie heard raindrops pattering on the chassis of the SUV. There was the sound of someone moving, but her vision was still a bit fuzzy. There was light coming from somewhere outside the vehicle, but inside it was near dark and she was having a hard time focusing.

She tried to move, and it was then that she realized she was hanging upside down, strapped into the driver's seat. Just as that knowledge sunk in, her body jerked and then tumbled to the floor, which was actually the ceiling of the SUV. She tried to sit up but couldn't; she then tried to roll over onto her knees but felt herself being restrained. Then she was pulled free and suddenly she was outside, rain falling on her face and the lights from a truck in her eyes.

The others regained consciousness over the next few minutes and made the same realizations in roughly the same order Stephanie had, but no one came to pull them out. Marcus regained mobility first and struggled out of his seatbelt, falling shoulder first onto the ceiling with a groan and sliding toward the shattered windshield of the SUV. It was hard to tell in the dimness, but he could see the outlines of what looked like Magnus and Fenrir laying in a depression of the roof near the back end of the vehicle. He climbed up and checked both for a pulse. Once he confirmed they were both still alive, he slid back down toward the front of the vehicle. He made similar cursory checks of Mestoph and Leviticus, noticing but cataloging away for now the fact that they had drastically different pulses from each other and from any human heartbeat he had ever felt.

Then he scrambled up toward where Stephanie was—only she wasn't. Even in the dimness, he could see that both front seats were empty and the passenger door was open. It was hard to tell, but it looked like the driver side door was creased and probably jammed.

"Stephanie?" he yelled, but there was no reply.

Panic hit him and he felt his aches and pains dull away to nothing. Before he realized it, he was standing in the rain outside. In front of him, silhouetted in the headlights of the truck, were Father Mike and Stephanie. He was holding a gun to her head.

"That's far enough lover boy," said Father Mike.

Marcus couldn't see it, but he could feel that cold smile beaming out from the man's face. Just the thought of it made him feel sick. He looked around, hoping one of the rebels might have survived, but if they had they were still unconscious or hiding. He saw that Father Mike was only holding one gun and cursed himself for not checking the vehicle before he came out.

"So now what?" asked Marcus.

"We wait for the others. Nothing has changed. We're all going to the center of that storm together," said Father Mike.

Marcus heard noises coming from the SUV and saw the glint off of a pair of eyes peeking out of the driver's side window. He chose then to speak up, hoping someone inside heard him.

"So what happened to the other gun?" asked Marcus, a little louder than necessary.

Father Mike laughed mirthlessly and pulled the second gun from his coat pocket and raised it high, pointing it up at the sky. Even in silhouette there was no denying it was the real thing.

"Nice try. Warning your friends isn't going to do any good. I hold all the cards here," said Father Mike.

He lowered the second gun and aimed it at the SUV, near the rear, and fired off two quick shots. By Marcus's count that was the eighth shot from that gun, though he couldn't remember any being fired from the padre's personal gun. He didn't know exactly what the capacity of the Sky Marshal's .40 was but he had played enough video games to recognize it as a subcompact, probably the Glock 27, and he figured it could only be nine or ten, depending on whether one had been chambered and assuming the clip had been full. If they were lucky and Father Mike wasn't paying attention to his ammo the second gun could quickly be made useless.