Fury of the Six (The Preston Six Book 5) (12 page)

“Lucas, Julie!” Rick ran over to them. “Something’s gone terribly wrong at Marcus’s.”

JOEY LAY ON A GRASSY bank overlooking a shanty house way outside LA. Samantha had given them the clue about this house just before she died. If she hadn’t, Julie said she’d never have found it. Thanks to Samantha, they had gotten this far and Joey glanced to the sky to reflect on the amazing friend they once had.

“She loaded the program,” Julie said.

“Great, we should execute it then,” Poly said.

“We do that and we risk killing every person on the entire planet.”

Poly huffed and went back to staring at the empty house.

“I’m going to try and get into the camera system without her feeling me poking around. It’ll take a few minutes.” Julie prodded her Panavice.

“We may not have long,” Rick spoke up. “I’ve got a bad feeling. They aren’t responding to my radio calls, or cell calls. It’s gone black in there.”

“Not for long,” Julie replied and Joey hovered over her shoulder. “Got it,” she said.

An image of a hallway appeared on the screen. She swiped her finger and a black image appeared, static on the next one. “They’ve got to be down there.” Julie swiped her finger again and a bedroom appeared. She gasped and covered her mouth.

Everyone gathered around the screen to get a better look at what elicited such a response. Joey pulled out his gun at the sight of Marcus with his friends and his dad, in the same room, not a hundred yards away.

“Don’t do anything foolish,” Poly said, putting a hand on his arm. She knew him well. “We can get down there before Marcus knows what hit him and end this all.”

“And what if we don’t?” Joey asked, moving close to Poly. “Can we really handle what comes next? Can we live with ourselves if we fail this stage? We all know the next one will be unbearable.”

Poly looked hurt and misty eyed. “I’m ready to do whatever it takes to protect her, aren’t you?”

Joey didn’t need to answer and stared at the shack. The man who had caused all their pain, ruined numerous planets, had Earth by its collective throat, killed their parents, and wanted to take his daughter away, sat in the house in front of them. He gripped the hilt of his gun tight, and squeezed the grip.

Addressing Edith, he picked up Evelyn to give her a quick hug. “If we don’t come out in fifteen minutes, get her out of here. Find Harris or Travis and just make sure to give her the life she deserves.”

“As if she was my own.”

Joey didn’t know how to thank Edith enough, but he settled with a hug, whispering his thanks into her ear. It felt like a goodbye. He knew going against Marcus in any circumstance would be difficult, but now they were going into the lion’s den.

Poly said her goodbyes and they each hugged Evelyn, kissing her and hugging her tiny body.

“We ready?” Joey asked Julie.

“Yes, the outside sensors are off,” she replied.

They jogged down the bank and toward the house. Joey glanced back at Edith, barely visible at the top of the hill, Evelyn’s smile beaming at them.

“We should take her,” Poly said to him. “I can’t stand leaving her out here.”

“We all have a role, we have to stick with it. If stage five comes, we’ll deal with it.”

“If stage five comes, I’m killing you,” Poly said.

They opened the door to the shack and saw the various bits of furniture tossed around the place as if someone had thrown a fit of rage. It gave Joey some joy to think Marcus had been living in such a hole for years.

“The stairs are over here,” Julie said, walking and looking at her Panavice. A set of hidden stairs led down under the house.

They followed Julie down the stairs, until they reached a steel door standing open to a dark room beyond. The lights turned on and displayed the room with high-end furniture and decorations scattered around the wall space. It felt like a home. Not like his old sterile mansion on the cliffside. Joey held out his gun and entered the house, looking to Julie for guidance.

“The room is in the back.” Julie pointed.

Joey rushed ahead and heard the footsteps behind him.

“Last room on the right,” Julie whispered.

The door stood open and he spotted his dad, standing half in the door and half out. Minter glanced back at the group of people running toward him but didn’t give notice and looked back into the room.

Joey slowed as he approached. Minter continued to ignore his presence and that was when he heard Marcus’s voice.

“He’s in the hall, they all are, aren’t they?” Marcus said. “It’s not like I can’t hear a herd of footsteps.”

Joey gritted his teeth and held both guns in his hands. He knew what he had to do, no matter the consequence. He couldn’t let this get to stage five, it had to end now. He felt the chill going down the back of his neck and the sounds of the world fell to a low hum. He glanced back at Poly, she stared at him with her frozen expression of concern. She must have known what he was about to do.

Stepping past his dad, he made it into the bedroom. Hank and Gladius stood facing Marcus, Gladius had a dagger in her hand. Joey looked down at his two guns. They were filled especially for this moment, each made of a different material, each bullet built by hand. All it would take is one to make it through his shield.

His hand shook as he took aim. He didn’t want to miss and stepped closer to Marcus, aiming for his head.

A bolt of lightning shot out of Marcus and struck Joey in the hands. He dropped both guns and fell back to the carpeted floor. Blood soaked into his shirt and the still eyes of a woman stared back at him. He knew her . . . Gingy, from Emmett’s house. The world’s sounds crashed around him as he looked into her vacant eyes.

“Joey!” Poly ran into the room and slid next to him. She didn’t stop to comfort him but threw several knives at Marcus. One of Lucas’s arrows flew by. Joey struggled to get up, to do his part, but his body wouldn’t respond.

Another arrow flew by and more knives from Poly. The loud crack sound of Minter’s gun filled the room. Sparks flew from Marcus as each item deflected off his shield. The gunfire stopped and Marcus stood with an arrow jutting out of his shoulder. He looked at it, confused, and then broke the arrow off in his chest.

He smiled, inspecting it. “Silk steel? Inventive,” he said, pushing on his bleeding wound.

“Hank,” Joey whispered, gesturing to his guns on the floor.

Marcus had a square gun out in an instant. “Uh-uh, big boy. Touch those and I’ll put a projectile through her head.” He motioned to Gladius and Hank backed away. “This is unbelievable!” He laughed. “You all have been chasing me for a long time, and here we stand.”

Joey stared at the guns on the ground. He knew he had some silk steel bullets in there. He squeezed his eyes and tried to feel the tingling down his neck, but it wouldn’t come.

“We will kill you,” Poly said.

“I have no doubt you will try, but to kill me would be as good as killing this entire planet, and I think your little genius back there knows it.” He pointed to Julie who stood behind Minter at the door. “You know what the stupid thing is?”

“Shut up!” Poly screamed and leaped for the guns on the floor.

In an instant, Marcus had a second gun in his hand and fired it, hitting Poly.

Joey screamed and grabbed her. The electrical charge went through him and he and Poly convulsed on the ground. The room went blurry and the yells from Hank and Lucas felt distant. When the shock stopped, he and Poly lay motionless on the carpeted floor.

They were losing and it killed Joey to admit it, but everything they planned on doing was unraveling. The most aggravating part was the killing blow was sitting in his gun, only a few feet away.

“Here’s the stupid thing,” Marcus said, agitated. “I haven’t hurt any one of you or your families. Any harm done to you was the sole act of rogue agents. I had no idea what Isaac had done to your parents until after we found you. Then there was Simon, who was ordered not to kill anyone but took it on his own to kill Almadon. Or Max, he again stepped over the line and killed Compry and Nathen. Not to mention how Emmett decided not to finish our safe haven at the Ryjack bunker. Your children could have lived there in peace, but Emmett decided not to finish the base properly and nearly killed you all.”

“And what about Samantha? You not only had her killed, you set it up for her lover to kill her. It’s the sickest thing I’ve ever seen,” Gladius said.

“It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. If you hadn’t killed Zach, I would have.”

Joey would throw up if he had to keep listening to Marcus, but his hands had curled up and he couldn’t even make his fingers straighten out. There would be no chance he could grab the gun and get a headshot.

“I’m not trying to win you over, but I want to tell you that there are other people in these worlds, people who see us and our planets as mere commodities to exploit. I’ve seen them.”

Joey had seen one as well, but all that mattered at this point was getting his fingers straight. He could get to his gun but needed at least some dexterity to grasp the handle and sink a silk bullet into Marcus’s head.

He tried to plunge into slow-mo again and the chills hit the back of his neck before it stopped. He choked and tried to gasp for breath as his whole body seized, pulling down from the top of his head, like a muscle spasm that wouldn’t loosen. He stared at Marcus, unable to blink or move.

“And your daughter . . . I take it she’s not here?”

“Go to Hell,” Poly said.

“Thought not. Well, she is something very special, but I’m guessing you already know that. She is perfect in almost every way and you are being very cruel to her.”

Joey made eye contact with Marcus and felt some of his motor skills returning as the spasm in his brain lessened.

“You’re keeping her trapped in that infant body while her mind surpasses us all, including myself. You may not be aware, but you are torturing her. I can help though. I can help her see her true potential and when the time comes, she will save us all.”

Hank jumped toward Marcus with his hands high. A gunshot fired and Hank fell to the ground. In that time, Gladius had grabbed the guns off the floor and pointed them at Marcus, screaming as Hank fell. “Hank!”

Marcus’s eyes widened and he turned to run down the passage way. Gladius stood firm and aimed. She fired the guns and the sparks flew off Marcus’s back as he ran down the hall. Joey didn’t know where the silk steel bullet was in the lineup but watched as she rapidly fired the gun. A bullet made contact and sent Marcus stumbling to the ground. He recovered and kept running, turning a corner and disappearing.

Gladius ran down the hall after him, Minter and Lucas on her heels. Poly got to her feet and staggered toward the hall, falling down near Hank. Joey wanted to scream. He cursed his foul body and willed himself to his feet.

“His shield should have worked,” Julie said, staring at Hank.

“Come on, we got to help,” Joey said, staggering his way past Hank, and making it down the hall. Poly darted by him down the corridor. He limped as fast as his body would allow, but each step was costly. The only things keeping him moving were his wife and daughter. Lucas yelled and Joey got to the large circular room they were all standing in, searching around the room for Marcus.

“Where’d he go?” Lucas asked Julie.

“I don’t know.” Her shaky hand slid across the screen. “I think he got out.” She looked at the ceiling to a small hole near the top.

“Evelyn’s out there!” Poly said in hysterics.

Joey’s eyes welled with tears, a bowling ball size lump developing in his throat.

“Awaiting orders from Marcus,” Alice said over the speakers.

“We need to get Hank,” Lucas said, and Gladius followed him out of the room.

“Find a way, Julie!” Poly screamed again.

“Give me a second.”

“We don’t have a second!”

Tears flowed from Julie’s eyes and she moved her hand around the screen.

Lucas and Gladius flanked Hank as he struggled with each step. He looked up and gave Joey a weak smile as they entered the circular room. He was still alive.

“Marcus no longer needs you, but regrets the loss of Julie,” Alice said.