Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (52 page)

He sensed the Ferox clearing the construction yard fence behind him.

He turned back to the edge to see the Ferox’s reaction. It stood where he’d jumped from and seemed to be assessing its pursuit. It roared at him from below, enraged at being forced in to chasing its prize, impatient to have its war. It charged and leaped as Jonathan turned away, breaking into a sprint across the cement, dodging building supplies like an Olympic hurdler as he made his way through the interior of the skeleton toward the other side.

He couldn’t leap between floors. The ceiling above him was reinforced cement. He didn’t stop when he reached the other side, the Ferox was catching up but it wasn’t going to get hold of him here. He jumped again, as hard as he could, watching again as he rushed airborne toward the adjacent building, desperate to reach the top.

He didn’t clear it. He crashed into the outer rim of the building’s roof as his hand reached for the top, grabbing on for life.

The force of his body hitting the wall wasn’t pleasant but he took the pain and kept moving, pulling himself up quickly and running to the center of the roof. The beast raced toward him in his mind.

The sound of the Ferox slamming into the rim of the roof chased him, when he turned he saw its one outstretched hand keeping it tethered over the precipice. He sprinted back, straight towards the construction site, one more jump back to the roof top of the unfinished skyscraper.

He could feel the creature reach for him as he once more took to the air, its claw coming within inches of grabbing him.

He halted himself against one of the skeleton’s exposed I-beams when he landed. The top wasn’t as completed as other levels, building material sat in stacks all over the floor.

Immediately, Jonathan pulled his weapon free. He turned to the roof he’d stood on seconds ago, looking down on the Ferox. When they connected eyes, Jonathan took the staff in one fist and beat his chest twice over his heart. The creature didn’t have to translate. It beat its chest back at him and let out a roar of intimidation, backing away from the roof’s edge to gain the running space it needed to make the jump to Jonathan.

The language for
come get a piece
was universal.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

TUESDAY | SEPTEMBER 5, 2005 | 5:15 AM

SHORTLY
after the Ferox joined Jonathan on the roof, it had begun to rain. It made the cement slick on the exposed surface, easier to lose his footing. Red and blue flashing lights had begun to surround the construction site. The fire alarm, the chase through the city, the hole they’d put in the building below, the sightings of the Ferox and all the activity must have led to enough 911 calls to pull the police out in force.

Jonathan heard the low familiar thudding of a helicopter in the distance.
Soon, the entire city would be watching.

He crashed into a pile of building supplies. Though his head was still spinning, he jumped into an offensive stance as he had practiced and let his instincts guide him. He caught the Ferox with a hard upward strike to its chin as it attempted to pounce on top of him. He whipped the other end of the staff around and struck the Ferox again, hitting hard against its right flank and rolling it off its feet back into the center of the cement floor. This maneuvering had gone on for a while now, largely at a stalemate. Blows hurt, but not enough to turn the tides.

Mere minutes had passed, yet Jonathan and the Ferox had experienced their own private war. The beast understood the stakes. It knew Jonathan intended to drop it off this roof and maneuvered accordingly, but it didn’t seem to want to win this way itself. It made no effort to corner him on a ledge, no attempt to catch him with a blow that would send him over the side. It didn’t want to play king of the mountain.

His head cleared.

They fell into circling each other’s footing yet again. Every time the Ferox landed a blow, the pain and threat caused him to teeter on the brink, forcing him to push down his doubt. He couldn’t let the monster into his head. He couldn’t panic or this was over.

The Ferox’s expression, the vicious combination of lizard and alien features, suddenly changed. Its jaw drew shut, no longer clicking like it had a mind of its own. Its tail grew still, rigid. Alarm screamed out in him at the change, but he forced it down, not allowing the panicked thoughts to rip him from his concentration.

He maneuvered to strike and found that the Ferox had left itself open. He reacted on impulse, realizing a second too late what the Ferox was doing. It took a painful blow to the ribs, but caught the staff under its arm, quickly bringing its forearm under and over, gripping the staff with its claw.

Its arm now a vise entangling his weapon, Jonathan hesitated and the beast capitalized, pulling the staff and him with it. Unprepared and being thrust toward the beast, he was forced to let go as the Ferox spun, its tail whipping toward him too fast to be dodged. It took him off his feet when it connected. Sideways, he crashed into one of the exposed I-beams, pain shooting down his spine as he dropped to the ground.

The beast waited for him to raise his head.

It dropped Excali-bar to the ground before him, using one of its feet to kick the staff behind it, far out of reach in a pile of building supplies. He didn’t understand why it hadn’t thrown the weapon from the roof? Did it want Jonathan to focus on retrieving the weapon? Did it just want inside of his head? Lifting himself off the ground, leaning against the I-beam, he looked down at his fists. They still seemed so inconsequential, useless.

How was he going to win this? He felt panic seeping in through the cracks in his mental shield. The Ferox seeming to become invincible and terrifying.

Dams the Gate,
Jonathan’s stolen inner voice spoke the words as the Ferox pointed to itself with claws, growling at him in its alien dialect, naming itself.
Wants the Challenger’s life more…

It roared at him from the center of the floor, but his own voice intimidated him from within. It beat its chest again, daring him to try to reclaim the staff, or, even better, to fight unarmed.

Jonathan didn’t have a plan for this. All he could think about was the beating he’d taken at the hands of Sickens the Fever. Now here he was, with no escape and nowhere to hide. He’d lead himself into a death trap.

Your blood will run in puddles, Challenger.

Unable to escape Dams the Gate’s voice within him, he lost what little grip he had on the adrenaline surging through him, heard the desperate sound of his heart racing in his ears.

The Ferox stepped toward him, beginning to close the gap. Jonathan’s body shook as he stepped away from the I-beam. The Ferox seemed aware of the change in him. The blood lust in its eyes gained fervor, the predator’s impatience at the closeness of its victim more evident.

You wear your fear, Defending Champion, Bringer of Rain.

As they approached one another the Ferox drew down lower to the ground. Its head bobbing like a snake coiled for attack as it watched Jonathan with one eye and then the other. It seemed pleased with itself at seeing his hesitance, its teeth clicking again in anticipation. It moved toward him suddenly, and he overreacted, committing to a dodge. He knew immediately that it had feigned the strike, used his fear against him so he would leave his guard open. It rushed toward him then, capitalizing on his mistake, catching his face hard with its solid fist. Jonathan could hear metallic knuckles clinking together against his eye socket as he was spun violently around.

Defenseless, his back exposed, he whipped back with his fist trying to force the Ferox to dodge. The strike sailed futilely through the air and was returned by a jaw cracking fist that forced his eyes to the sky and loosened the teeth in his mouth. Dizzied, unsure where his enemy now stood, he lashed out again desperately hoping to connect.

There was a loud clap and he was brought to jarring halt. The Ferox’s claw seized his arm mid swing, gripping him by the wrist, and before he could react he was pulled off balance by the monster. He felt it release his arm as he was flung forward. Helpless to stop his momentum, an anvil came down on him. The monster’s clasped hands hammered into the back of his head sending him straight at the floor.

Jonathan felt his feet leave the ground and his skull thrash against cement, heard the surface cracking around him as his head broke through the concrete. Dazed, he rolled, barely quick enough to keep the foot coming down for his head from crushing him back into the ground. Dams the Gate’s stomp shook the roof as he rolled further away, hurrying to put distance between them. It charged him, kicking into his abdomen so hard he was ripped from ground and sent shooting across the roof.

Jonathan crashed through a stack of building supplies that exploded around him, only slowing him enough to drop him into a roll. Disoriented from the barrage, he reached out to stop himself and felt his finger gripping the rim of the roof edge as the surface ran out below him.

Jonathan scrambled to pull himself back onto the roof.

The fight became a blur of pain.

He was hesitating, taking blows he should have dodged, not capitalizing when the beast made a mistake. He tried to defend but the creature was getting in too many hits. Every blow was a failure resonating in his mind, he felt himself coming to know the battle was lost.

The viaduct all over again, the creature toyed with him. He was rolled over the pavement, smashed into the steel beams, slowing down, and stiffening as the blows added up. Finally the creature lifted him, grabbing him by the front of his jacket. He felt his body spun, thrown across the roof.

He thought it was the end, that he‘d soon feel himself falling as he plunged from the building. Instead, he slammed into the metal doors that housed the temporary elevator shaft that the construction workers used to get to the roof.

He’d have broken straight through and fallen to his death at the bottom, but the lattice metal doors were held shut by a padlock and heavy chain. The doors bent around him until they absorbed the full force of his impact and spit him back onto the cement.

His ears were ringing, the wind and rain pounding him there. He coughed and blood spat onto the concrete in front of him. He knew what it meant; internal bleeding. The red puddled in front of him, bringing him back to the kitchen floor, whispering to him what seemed so obvious now. He was always going to die. He’d been dead from the moment he woken up that night, been headed right back to that puddle since the moment he dared to crawl out of it.

He wondered then if Heyer was seeing this now. Would he really not intervene, would he watch him fail? Would the alien close his eyes when the Ferox tore the life out of him, only to have the whole ordeal cease to have ever been a moment later?

Despair gripped him.

A beam of light hit the Ferox. It was the helicopter finding them, now, when his hope was lost. Perhaps his friends would all see him die up here before this timeline ceased to be. The light on the monster made it all the more menacing, casting its shadow onto Jonathan. Dams the Gate hesitated in the light for a moment, pulling focus from its prey until it decided the helicopter wasn’t a threat.

Jonathan heard the thudding now, the sound of the helicopter’s blades tuning out the rest of the world’s noise. It was calming, having the chaos of so many sounds reduced to one. He turned his head and saw the chain dangling from the elevator doors.

He knew he had to get up but he didn’t want to, he wanted to let it be over.

Don’t lie down in front of him.

It was the voice of some wise old man, the words someone was supposed to be there to say to him, now, there in his thoughts. A hot spark of anger awoke in Jonathan as the isolation he felt pressed in on him, reminding him that no one was coming, that he was alone. The thing inside of him, stirred by the injustice of it, came alive and growled.

Dams the Gate should have been on top of him by now. What was it waiting for?

He looked again and found the monster taking its time walking over to finish him. This savoring of their victory seemed to be a species trait. Even this one, so impatient for the kill, wanted him to keep fighting, wanted his death to be drawn out.

His eyes fell back to the ground, to the blood before him. The rain had begun diluting it, washing away the red. The anger screamed out from within him, desperate to be heard.

This is the moment.

It surged up in him, showing him the things he couldn’t bear; the stacks of dead, the murdered trophies of Sickens the Fever. The shame he’d endured for allowing it to happen.

I do not feel guilt. I will not lose to fear.

The voice was his, and yet it belonged to the part struggling to be freed inside of him. It showed him the face of the little girl. Her broken body, her innocence contaminated.

I can be whatever it takes.

Like a fuse being ignited, the rage took hold of his perception, changed the way he saw things. His abandonment ceased to be his weakness. His isolation wasn’t a curse. No one was watching, no one would ever remember.

The rage didn’t see despair. It saw permission. It saw freedom.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

TUESDAY | SEPTEMBER 5, 2005 | 5:20 AM

JONATHAN
knew then why he was lying near defeated on this roof top. He’d come down here with his shiny new weapon, like some damn knight riding a horse. He’d been trying to protect himself from the truth of it all. Save what was left of him from the last real horror.