Council of Peacocks (14 page)

The room was silent.

Bethany got up from her chair and walked to
the windows. “It’s coming from outside.”

Ms. Ryerson stared at Bethany’s back, her
lips tense and white.

“Do you hear anything?” she asked Todd.

“No, Ms. Ryerson, but then I’m not as strong
as Beth. What about you, David? Anything?”

David’s eyes went wide and he shook his head.
“What am I supposed to be hearing?” He stopped and looked around
his mind to see if anything seemed out of place. “I do
feel…something. Almost…I guess it does kind of feel like I’m being
watched.”

“This can’t be good.” Amy got up from her
chair and went to stand beside the older woman.

“What the hell is this?” David asked. He
stayed in his seat. “Bethany?”

Bethany shook her head, her eyes focusing
between the city streets below and the windows of the nearby glass
buildings. “I don’t think they know I’ve spotted them. They are
cloaking their thoughts. I only caught it because I was thinking of
how that creep Jessica is so hard to read.”

“I’m not hard to read,” Jessica said. “You’re
just a bad reader. And I am not a creep. I’m just stronger than you
and you’re jealous. There are three of them, Ms. Ryerson. They are
about to enter the front lobby. Do you want me to send for
Elaine?”

Ms. Ryerson nodded, slowly clenching her good
fist over and over. Then she shook her head. “No, I’ll take care of
it. Jessica, I am putting you in charge until I get back. David,
you’re new, but trust me on this. Follow her lead. I want the five
of you to meet up with the others on the roof. A helicopter will be
waiting by the time you get there. You’ve all got to get out of the
country ASAP.”

Amy looked at the ground for a moment,
glanced at Jessica, who only shook her head, and then bit her lip.
Then she said: “It is them, isn’t it, Ms. Ryerson?”

Ms. Ryerson blinked and looked away. “Do as I
say. If you’re lucky, you will never find out. Now go.” With that,
Ms. Ryerson ran off faster than humanly possible, little more than
color in motion.

“How…? What...?” David was out of his chair
now.

“You’re such a newbie.” Jessica rolled her
eyes and walked toward from the main bank of elevators. “Do you
think Wisdom would hire someone normal to teach us? Come on, we’ll
take the private elevator.”

David started after her. “Shouldn’t we wait
for one of the guards? You know, the guys with guns and training?
It could be dangerous.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jessica answered. “Of
course it will be dangerous. But so are we.”

David looked over at Bethany, who was still
looking out the windows.

“See,” Bethany said. “I told you she’s
creepy. Come on, we should follow them. This could be bad. Poor
guy, you have no idea what you’ve got yourself into, do you? I wish
I could tell you, but somehow I don’t think you’re ready for the
truth.”

“So I hear. Can you tell me why the hell
everyone’s acting like the Russians are coming?”

Bethany laughed and put her arm around
David’s waist as they followed the others out of the classroom and
through the halls. “You are far too young for that reference. Hell,
I’m too young for it. Well, not really, but I feel too young for
it. The reason we are leaving is that a group of…well let’s just
call them a group for now. They are coming and they want to kill
us. No, I can’t tell you why. Of course I know why. I’m just not
allowed to tell you. Not yet. Mr. Wisdom has some enemies, very bad
men who do very bad things.”

“You know, the whole answering questions
before I ask them is also very disturbing. Can you stop that? Are
these the same ones that got to Madeline?”

The color drained from Bethany’s face. She
shook her head, clearly upset. “What do you know about that? Never
mind, I’m still not telling you anything. But yes, I do think so.
Maybe not the same ones, exactly, but the same group. Listen, we
don’t have much time and I don’t even know what you are capable of.
Do you know?”

Ahead, he saw Jessica point her finger at the
two Chinese men that had almost run into him earlier. While he
watched, both men nodded their heads and took guns out from inside
their jackets.

“Yes. I know what I can do.”

“Good. Because if we don’t get to that
helicopter on the roof you may have to do some of whatever it is
you do. Look, don’t give me that face. See guns? People running?
This is not a ‘
let’s talk about it
’ situation. This is not
an
‘Orange Alert.
’ This is a ‘kill or be killed’ type of
situation.”

They caught up with Jessica and the others
just as the door to the elevator opened. Once inside, Todd pressed
his hands against the metal doors and they started to rise very
quickly.

“Todd, can you make this go any faster?
They’re in the building now.” Jessica pulled on her lower lip with
her fingers. She looked like an old woman worried about her
taxes.

“If I make it go any faster the cables could
snap and we’d fall right into their laps. Now let me
concentrate.”

Although he did not seem to be pushing very
hard, there was a lot of sweat pouring off his forehead. David
could not begin to fathom exactly what Todd was doing.

“What happens if they find us?” David asked.
“They just kill us and leave? Won’t they try to kill Wisdom and the
others first?”

Jessica shook her head. “You don’t go after
Wisdom. Even these morons know that. I can smell it in their
brains. They will come right for us and the other Anomalies, but
they will eliminate anyone that gets in their way.”

“Except Wisdom.” Todd was starting to show
signs of weariness. His eyes twitched and sweat poured freely from
his damp hair.

“Oh.” Jessica let the sound drop from her
mouth. It was soft, barely audible but the word filled the elevator
like a large, heavy object.

“I can feel it too,” Amy said. “They have
started to kill people.”

“Most of them don’t even know anything about
us. Todd, please try to make this go a little faster. It’s not that
I’m scared or anything but I…I just don’t want…”

The elevator stopped abruptly and everyone
let out a short yelp.

David wiped his own forehead. Until that
moment he had not realized he was sweating. Part of him wondered if
this was some sort of bizarre test. The only thing that convinced
him it was all completely real was the messages his brain kept
sending him. While he could not decode them all, the general
meaning was clear. Somewhere nearby, people were dying and people
were screaming.

The elevator door opened.

***

Ezekiel Scratch was a security guard. He had
no particular love for the work and he certainly felt little or no
honor in the profession. Still, he did not think about quitting
daily as so many people do at their jobs. People checked in with
him when they entered the building at 333 Bay St. It was a big
building, lots of visitors, and most of them really had no clue how
to make their way around. It was his job to point them in the right
direction. As security jobs go it was one of the best. He did not
have to wander around some warehouse with a flashlight pretending
to watch for thieves and vandals as he tried to stay awake. He did
not work with money or anything valuable, so the risk of robbery
was barely calculable. Here he was able to interact with people,
see the light of day and be home each night to Dianna and the
kids.

Downtown Toronto is also one of the most
peaceful cities of its size in the world. It does not attract the
same type of crazies as New York or Los Angeles, and its murder
rate is next to non-existent compared to places like Chicago and
Detroit. In the five years Ezekiel had worked on Bay Street the
most violence he had seen was a freshly-fired accountant point his
finger at his former boss and threaten to break his skull for
letting him go. The guy never followed up on the threat. Violence
outside the hockey rink just did not come natural to Canadians.

Which is why it took him a long time to
realize the gunshots and the screams around him were real.

Then the elevator gave a sharp 'Ding!' A
group of muscular men and women in dark suits rushed off the
elevator touting large rifles and handguns. For a moment, Ezekiel
wondered if they were just filming some movie here again. The
absence of cameras and the very real smell of blood made it hard to
believe the comfortable lie.

Ezekiel rose from his hiding spot and started
to follow after the people with guns. That is what security guards
do, he thought. Then a woman with a blond crop-cut and a lot of
firepower told him to stay back. She pointed out a coffee stand
where a few people who worked in the building were hiding.

“Protect them,” the blond woman said.

He crouched down and did just that. For five
minutes there was nothing but screaming and gunshots. Then a
relative silence.

“What are they doing now?”

Ezekiel checked his gun again, to make sure
the safety was off. It was the third time he had checked since the
shooting started. As before, it was ready to fire. He had never
shot a gun at another person, although he was not sure the things
he saw qualified as people.

“Zeek, I said what the hell are they doing?
Can you see?”

Ezekiel looked at the people huddled in the
corner with him. Then he looked back down the hallway that led to
the lobby. He saw the three ‘things’ causing all the damage. Bodies
and bullet shells littered the floor. He watched as one of the
three ‘things’ (he could not bring himself to use the word monster)
lifted the body of a young man up by the legs and tossed it two
hundred feet down the hall. Another picked up a white-haired
Chinese woman, bit into her neck and started to chew.

“Don’t ask.” Ezekiel swallowed hard. He was
proud of himself for not fainting. “Besides, I can’t see much. It’s
starting to get smoky.” He said this to the woman who owned the
coffee stand. He had bought coffee from her every morning since he
had started the job. He had no idea what her name was, and no clue
as to how she knew his. In the moment, he forgot he wore a nametag.
“I think they’ve started a fire.”

“A fire!” She stood up and Ezekiel grabbed
her arm to pull her back down.

“It doesn’t look big. For Christ sakes you
can’t go out there. You didn’t see what they are.

The woman took a strong grip on his hand,
tore it from her arm and got back up. “Don’t you be grabbing me! I
am not your property and you are definitely not my knight in
shining armor. Shouldn’t you be out there stopping this? You’re a
security guard, aren’t you? Or are the uniform and flimsy badge
just for show? And of course I’ve seen what they are. Just a bunch
of guys in suits. They came off the elevator. You were there when
they did.”

Ezekiel shook his head. “That wasn’t them.
There are only three of them. They came in the front door and
they…”

“There’s only three?” She grabbed her purse
and started to walk away. “We outnumber them even here. You can do
what you like but I’m not staying here.”

An African-Canadian man behind her, still
gripping his cappuccino, spoke up.

“Melinda, for Christ’s sake, get down!”

“I am not getting down,” the woman said. “I’m
getting out. There’s got to be a fire door around here. We
can….”

She was cut off by another round of gunshots.
The woman flattened herself against the floor several feet away
from any sign of protection. Ezekiel, the black man and the two
women still behind the coffee stand shrieked. Ezekiel nearly
dropped his gun. He was sweating through his uniform now and he
could barely keep his stands steady. But the coffee-stand lady was
right. He did have a job to do. He took several sharp breaths and
then got out from behind the coffee stand to protect the
stranger.

He pointed his gun at the spot where the
hallway met the foyer. He could not see much except shadows and
smoke, but he could hear the chaos. His teeth felt fragile as he
clenched his jaw. Sweat dripped into his eye. He did not dare take
the time to wipe it away. Something could show up in that moment.
If it did, he wanted both of his hands on the trigger.

The gunshots were coming pretty steadily now.
In fact, they seemed to be getting louder. That could only mean the
fight was coming into the elevator area.

The coffee-stand lady lay face down on the
ground, holding her purse up to guard her forehead.

“Miss, get up.” Ezekiel knelt down beside
her, still pointing the gun as stiffly as he could. “We’ve got
to….”

He stopped.

Shapes came out of the smoke, walking
backwards. They moved very slowly, gracefully, the shooting and the
screaming little more than an annoyance. When they were free of the
smoke, one of them turned around and looked directly at
Ezekiel.

Ezekiel stared back.

He felt as if the gun was going to drop out
of his hand at any moment. The only thing that kept it there was
the knowledge that the safety was not on and he had no way of
knowing if or where the bullet would go.

“Mother of god.” He wanted to look away but
found that he could not move. A deer in headlights. He was frozen,
watching the shadows move through the smoke into solid objects.
Then the evil thing turned away from him, faced the nearest
elevator and ripped the metal doors open with its hands. Steel tore
like paper. Ezekiel looked down at his gun. Sweat ran onto his lips
now. What kind of person could turn their back on a gun? But then
again, what kind of person….

“…has wings?”

The other two winged creatures turned to look
at him now, their eyes empty holes of red-trimmed white light. All
three appeared to be male but their facial features slipped when he
focused on them. One moment they were blond Caucasians, the next
their skin was covered in green scales. One snapped his fingers and
the area connecting the foyer with the elevator area suddenly
disappeared. A wall of darkness appeared where once there was only
smoke. It seemed especially dark against the luminescent white of
their wings. The second the darkness settled in place, Ezekiel
could no longer hear the gunshots and screaming from the other
room.