Council of Peacocks (15 page)

The first winged man now had all the metal
torn away from the elevator door. There was no sign of the actual
carriage but that did not stop them from stepping inside. One by
one they jumped into the elevator shaft. And flew up.

Ezekiel flipped the safety on his gun, placed
it quietly beside the coffee-stand woman and ran toward the back
doors.

***

“Damn!” Elaine pounded the butt of her
shotgun against the wall of swirling blackness for a third time. It
was getting hard to breathe with all the smoke in the air. Most of
the civilians ran out into the streets as soon as they caught a
good look at the Edimmu. The rest were currently being escorted out
by her security team. She turned on the two-way radio installed in
the collar of her trench coat and called Wisdom.

“Yes?” His voice sounded tinny and even more
inhuman than normal.

“They’re inside. They’ve put up some sort of
wall. We can’t follow. Are the others away?”

“Should be,” Wisdom’s voice came back. “Don’t
worry about the Edimmu. I will take care of them. Get the others
and leave the building. I can’t guarantee it will still be standing
when this fight is over.”

“Affirmative.”

She turned off the radio and motioned for the
rest of her security team to get out of the building. Elaine had
served Wisdom for over ten years. In all that time, she had never
actually seen him in action. Each time they had encountered an
Edimmu or Council member, the bad guys had always made a hasty
retreat. There was something in Wisdom even the inhuman feared.

She prayed, for all their sakes, Wisdom lived
up to his reputation.

***

David was the first to walk out onto the
roof. Three helicopters were there, but each of their blades had
been shattered like glass. Black smoke poured out of their
interiors like liquid sewage overflowing from a toilet. Near the
edge of the building, a pocket of strangers stared at the metallic
corpses. He recognized some of them from the common room yesterday.
Perhaps these were the rest. He did not, however, see Garnet.

“What should we do now, Jessica?” Amy
asked.

“How the hell should I know?”

“Ms. Ryerson did put you in charge. Any
clue?” Todd took a step toward the helicopter.

Jessica stomped her foot and her face became
a mixture of wrinkles and tense expressions.

“They’re coming up the elevator shaft.”
Bethany stared into the heart of the building. “They know we’re
here. We can’t stay. We have to get down.”

Jessica stared at the helicopters and the
other Anomalies. “Todd, can you stop the elevators from
working?”

“They’re not taking the elevators,” Bethany
said. “They’re flying up the elevator shafts.”

“What do you mean, flying?” David asked.

“She means they’re flying,” Todd said. “Keep
up. They’re in the main elevator shafts, right? Good. They don’t
connect with the roof. We’re safe for now.”

“Safe isn’t exactly the word I would
use.”

The five of them spun around as soon as they
heard the new voice. A short woman in a white jacket with matching
pants walked out of from the black smoke. The smoke did not seem to
touch her. If anything, it moved out of her way.

David felt fire spring to his fingertips. His
head buzzed so loudly he could almost see the noise. Beside him,
Jessica suddenly seemed a few inches taller and her hair blew
backwards in a wind that had not been there a moment ago.

“Relax, children.” The woman kept walking
toward them. “It’s not me you need to fear. I’m a friend.
Promise.”

“If you’re a friend, why did you blow up our
helicopters?” Amy hid behind Jessica but spoke with confidence.

“Not what you would call a bright girl, are
you?” The woman was only a few feet before them now. “I didn’t.
That was our dear friends below. The thing you have to ask
yourselves is why creatures who can fly, who flew up here to
destroy the helicopters before going all
Matrix
-like on the
lobby, didn’t just fly up to the 13th floor in the first
place.”

“Good question. Why?” Bethany chewed on her
nails and studied the woman with surprising calm.

“Because they want to make a statement.”
David walked past Jessica to stand in front of the woman in white.
“Is that it? They want to destroy the building one floor at a time
as a show of strength or something?”

“Close,” the woman in white said. “But not as
close as I expected. Maybe Wisdom is expecting too much of you lot.
Actually, shouldn’t there be two more of you? Where are Jared and
Garnet?”

It was in that moment they realized Jared was
no longer amongst them.

“Damn it!” Jessica pushed her way past David
and stood immediately in front of the woman. “Where did he go? Did
anyone see him in the elevator? And who are you? Did Mr. Wisdom
send you here?”

The woman laughed. “Of course Wisdom sent me.
Call me Echo. Most people do. Wisdom and I go way back. But we
really do not have time for this right now. You’re not safe here
and Wisdom is not going to be able to protect you.”

“And you can?” David asked.

The woman looked down into the building.
“Doubtful. Not if we stay here. Hence the need for speedy
retreat.”

“What about Wisdom? Is he going to be
okay?”

The woman looked at David closely. “Wisdom
can take care of himself, but not if he has to watch out for you
guys as well. I am supposed to take the 48 of you somewhere the
Edimmu won’t be looking. We can all hide out for a few days, throw
these losers off our trail and then my babysitting chores are over.
It’s just a shame the other two aren’t here.”

David looked behind Echo. “And how are you
going to get out us out of here? Do you have a spare helicopter
handy?”

Echo shook her head. “That’s a little too
primitive for me. Wisdom may like all this blending-in crap but I
prefer a much more direct approach.” She pressed her left arm out
and flexed her wrist. Ten feet away the air sliced open and a
multi-colored oval appeared out of the air. It was at least nine
feet tall and three feet wide. “Do close your mouths, children.
Although I’m sure Wisdom has not been completely forthcoming about
the true nature of things, you all realize there are people out
there able to do things other people can’t. This is one of the
things I can do. Now go on, step through there. It will take you to
the safe house before you can say ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’”

***

Wisdom felt a hole open in the space-time
fabric nearby. He took a deep breath and smiled.

“Echo. Right on time.”

He stood in front of the elevator shafts on
the top floor and took off his jacket and tie. He was nervous the
first time he lived these events. Just a little. You never really
know when you step into a fight if you will win or not. Even when
you are stronger and faster than your opponent, there is always the
element of chance. This time there was no trepidation. He knew he
would win because he had already done it.

The elevator door opened, slowly at first as
fingers fought steel, then, with a sudden final violence, the shaft
was completely visible. Wisdom smirked and spread his arms, palms
out and parallel at waist level. Then he called forth the power of
Hellfire and Brimstone.

***

“Can you believe this crap?” Sammy Laymon
took a bite of his Polish sausage and spoke to his sister who was
putting sauerkraut on her own. “First she’s all about ‘You don’t
show me enough affection’ and ‘I want more of a commitment,’ then
she starts with this whole handcuff-bondage and 'wanting to be with
a woman' type stuff. She’s just so confusing. I’m not sure if I
want to institutionalize her or marry her.”

“I told you she was a psycho.” Catherine gave
the hot dog vendor a $20 and waited for the change. “Can you see
what’s happening over there?”

Sammy shook his head. “They’ve got the whole
thing blocked off. I haven’t seen this many police since the Pope
came for that Catholic youth thing a few years back.”

“You’re comparing explosions and tragedy to
the Catholics? When was the last time you were in church? Do you
want to head over to see if we can see anything?”

“If we can get through the crowds. Do you
even know where the whatever-it-is is at?”

She shook her head. Traffic was stopped all
around them. The roads had been closed off and pockets of people,
like stones in a stream, pointed fingers all the way up to Yonge
St. Sammy saw smoke fill the air, heard the roar of fire and police
sirens, but he could not see what everyone was pointing at.

At first.

Then they saw black smoke pouring out of a
window at the top of a nearby building.

“Must be quite the fire,” Catherine said as
she saw it, too. “Take my advice, dump her. Do you really want
someone like that raising your children?”

“Well…”

He never finished the sentence.

At that moment the top of the building
exploded. Red and orange light mixed with bright yellow flames,
shattering the windows. It started to rain glass and burning
shrapnel down on the crowds.

Then the screaming started.

And the running.

***

Wisdom walked through the flames as the
ceiling fell around him. He stepped on the skull of the first
Edimmu he had killed. It crumpled beneath his foot.

As soon as the Hellfire started burning their
flesh, the three monsters dropped their human disguises and took on
their natural reptilian form. They stood over eight feet tall,
grey-green lizards in man-made suits. Their wings, oily black like
wet vultures, twitched and spasmed as the fire spread. Wisdom
reached into the flames and turned flicking fire into a solid steel
spear. He used it to pin the second Edimmu to the wall. It still
screamed that inhuman wail unique to these creatures long after the
others fell silent.

The last of the three crawled away from him,
five-fingered talons pulling it desperately over rubble and ash. In
one hand it held a portion of a wing Wisdom had torn off its back.
The rest of it lay somewhere in the flames.

“Tsk, tsk, not too far, lizard.” Wisdom bent
down, grabbed the thing that had once looked very much like a man
by the head and lifted it off the ground. “First I’m going to give
you a message to deliver to Propates and his arrogant cult. Then I
am going to throw you out the window. It should be a new experience
for you, flying without your bloody wings. Then you will hit the
ground and be in a great deal of pain. Fortunately for me, it won’t
kill you. It is only twenty stories and you’re a whole lot less
human than I am. Then you will run back to your master as fast as
you can. Understand?”

The creature tried to nod its head but it
could barely move. Most of its scales had melted off the flesh.

“Good. The message is this. Tell him I know
what he has planned. Tell him I know he’s in bed with my father.
Then tell them I will accept the loss of this building because I am
a patient man. But if he comes at me again I will forget how
patient I am. Do you think you can remember that?”

The Edimmu tried to nod again.

“Good.” Wisdom kept his grip on the
creature’s head and dragged it through gaps in the flame to the
space where a wall of glass had once stood. The Edimmu tried to
struggle, kicking its legs and flapping the joints where wings had
once attached to body. It refused to let go of the portion of its
wing it held in hand. Wisdom did not wait until he was at the edge.
When he was five feet away, he bent down and, with his other hand,
grabbed the creature by the groin, raised it over his head and
threw the Edimmu. Then he walked to the lip of the building to
watch it fall. After the Edimmu bounced off a fire truck and hit
the ground, Wisdom crossed his arms and waited. A group of
firefighters and police officers rushed to form a semi-circle
around the twisted body. Only when it got up and ran – causing
police and firefighters to run away as well – did Wisdom back away
from the window.

As he teleported away, he said, “Let’s see
how it goes this time.”

***

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

Sammy looked over at his sister and shook his
head. “You’ve got to be kidding. Can’t it wait?”

Catherine glared at him. “If it could wait, I
wouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s head to that falafel joint over
there.” Without waiting for a response, she started the slow
process of pushing through the crowds.

Downtown Toronto was thick with crowds of
onlookers, all gaggling at the destruction of the building on Bay
Street. The air filled with a strange oily smoke that made it hard
to breathe, but people flooded the streets. Reporters and police
were everywhere. After two minutes of it, his sister Catherine was
ready to go home. Ten minutes later they were still pushing their
way through the crowds trying to get back to the subway.

They stepped through the door and found the
restaurant empty. The guy behind the counter smiled, a perfunctory
action, and then started the questioning. “What happened out there?
Did you see it?”

Catherine pushed Sammy forward, forcing him
to answer the question while she headed to the back of the
restaurant to use the bathroom. “Yeah, we saw it,” Sammy answered.
“Whole building blew up. Fire everywhere. From what I heard,
they’re wondering if the whole building is going to come down.”

“Like our own 9/11,” the counter attendant
said, slowly nodding his head.

Sammy shook his head and winced. “Not even
close. It’s probably just a gas leak.” He looked toward the back of
the restaurant and willed his sister to pee faster.

“So what will you guys have?” The guy behind
the counter washed his hands as he spoke.

Sammy looked over the menu. “How about two
beef shawarma plates? I might as well sit in here while the crowd
disperses.” The counter guy nodded and started to slice the meat
for the orders as Sammy went to sit at the nearest booth. He
focused on the crowds outside, most of them still pointing up at
the darkened sky. He was so caught up in crowd watching that he
forgot about his sister until the counter guy brought the food over
to the table. Sammy smiled up at him, said thanks and then turned
to the back of the restaurant again.