Syphon: Guardians of the Fractured Realms (4 page)

“Yeah, well that’s not all. Inside the, uh, ‘footprints’, the cement is crushed to powder. There’s a bunch of cracks all around the prints as well. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say our perp jumped out the window and landed here barefooted, then walked away…”

“Yeah, well, I’d have to say you don’t know any better. Nobody jumps out a fifteen story window, lands on their feet, then walks away from it. I’m a little rusty with the math, but I’d hazard a guess and say he would have been traveling over 60 miles per hour before he hit.”

“Whatever, just have the lab rats look this area over when they get here.”

She saw him look up toward her before gesturing toward the window.

“Hey Cora… Take a look to your left outside the window.”

Leaning out further she glanced to the left.

“Holy…”

“What is it?”

“Something gouged the living shit out of this wall.”

She tried to reach the hole, but it was just out of reach.

“Looks like we need the techs to get ahold of a window washing platform as well. Something took several huge chunks out of the side of the building, and I’m suspecting whatever did that also took the nice gash out of the window frame and left that gash in the sidewalk as well.”

“Excuse me…”

Cora jumped a bit at the sudden sound. She hadn’t heard anyone come up behind her.

“Frank, I gotta go, someone’s here.”

As she hit end, she turned toward the door, only to find someone already moving around the room.

“Yes…? You shouldn’t be in here,” she said as she examined the stranger. The woman before her stood about five foot eleven and was dressed in what appeared to be a black silk shirt, black leather pants, knee-high Doc Martens, and topped off with a black leather trench coat. All the black contrasted starkly with her pale white skin and fiery red hair that had cinnamon streaks running through it. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail with several stray strands dangling around her face.

“Can I help you?”

“I hope so… I was told there was an officer Blanchett here that might be able to help me. I’m trying to find a John Doe that was brought in last night…”

The stranger trailed off with a hopeful look on her face.

“I’m
Detective
Blanchett, and yes, we did bring in a John Doe yesterday. And you are?”

“I do so apologize detective. Where are my manners. My name is Sybil. Sybil Brennegan. Could you tell me more about your John Doe?”

“Oh…? Do you think you know him?”

“I kinda hope so,” she said as she glanced around the room again. Cora noticed the woman only slightly wrinkled her nose a few times, in what appeared to be disgust, even though the overpowering stench still lingered in the room.

Interesting…

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“Well,” she began as she started wandering around the room again, her boots making a clunking sound with each step, “I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner last night, but he never showed. Then I saw in the news this evening that a John Doe was brought here. The artist’s sketch resembled my friend, so I hurried over to see if it was him.”

As she talked, Cora noticed that she seemed to be investigating the room while trying to look indifferent. Her eyes lingered on the broken handcuff and the gouge in the windowsill a few seconds before her eyes returned to scanning the room.

What is she hiding? She seems to know more than what she’s telling me, but how to I draw it out of her?

“So does your friend have a name?”

“Samuel… Sam for short.”

Cora pulled out her notebook again.

“So… This friend of yours, Samuel. Does he have any distinguishing marks, like scars or tattoos?”

“Hmmm…”

She paused for a second, tapping her finger over her lips as she looked up at the ceiling.

“Not that I ever recall seeing. He did have the most amazing emerald green eyes though.”

As she said that, she absently brushed one of the loose strands of hair out of her eyes. Cora noticed something peek out from the sleeve of her trenchcoat. From the brief glance, it appeared that Sybil was wearing what appeared to be the same piece of jewelry that Samuel had been wearing. As her eyes moved back up to Sybil’s face, she realized the other woman had noticed her stare. Before Cora had a chance to ask about it, her cell rang. She jabbed at the answer button.

“What? This better be good.”

“What crawled up your ass? I just wanted to let you know the CSI rats were here. Did you want them to start down here or head up there first?”

“Have ‘em start down there. Nobody’s going to touch anything up here until we let ‘em. On the other hand, those marks in the sidewalk might get contaminated if we don’t check ‘em first.”

“Okay, sounds like a plan. What’s go—”

Cora hung up on Frank, turning back toward Sybil to ask her about the jewelry. A quick glance around the room told her that she was alone.

“Sonofab…”

Cora ran out of the room and over to the charge nurse’s station.

“Did you see a woman come out of this room a minute ago, wearing all black with a black leather trench coat?”

“Honey, with all these yahoos running around here tonight, I ain’t had time to see anyone.”

“Damn it.”

Turning to head back toward the room again, she saw an aide running toward her, waving frantically.

“Detective, you need to come see this.”

“Now what…?”

“It’s that guard you were asking about. They just found him. He’s dead!”

“Shit, the chief’s gonna be all over my ass about this fiasco,” she muttered under her breath.

Looking back at the expectant aide, her shoulders slumped as she waved in the general direction the aide had come from.

“Lead the way.”

“Well look what we have here…”

Pain blossomed across the side of his face, causing him to fall on his side. The pain was making it hard to concentrate on where he was or what was happening.

“Ow… Dammit, this bum’s got a head made outta rock or something…”

Before he had a chance to get his bearings, another foot connected with his face, causing his head to bounce off the wall behind him. Stars flashed behind his eyes as he tried to remember where he was. He vaguely remembered sitting down in an alleyway to rest, and then the pain.

“Yo, you’re right man, head like a brick.”

Several more blows rained down on his head and ribs. Samuel did his best to protect his vitals, but was only partially successful. After a few minutes, the blows stopped.

“Is he dead? Come on… I was hoping for a little more fun than that. All we got out of it is sore feet.”

As they talked, Samuel realized the pain was receding, allowing him to think coherently again. Opening his eyes, he assessed the situation. Standing before him were four men in their late teens to early twenties. He realized he could smell alcohol on them, and based off their movements, were slightly drunk. He also realized that he could tell that they didn’t have a lot of fighting experience based off the way they held themselves.

“Hey, he’s still conscious.”

Turning their attention back, one started walking toward him.

“Who you eyeballing? Do you want some more of this!”

Samuel saw the thug rear his foot back for another kick. As the foot came forward, he instinctively brought his hand up, catching him at the ankle.

“Ah! Fuck! Leggo!”

Samuel twisted his opponent’s leg quickly, trying to knock him off balance, but was unprepared for the sound of snapping bones before the guy fell down, clutching his ankle.

“HE BROKE MY LEG!” the guy screamed, clutching the injured part. “KILL THAT SONOFABITCH!”

As the other three started to rush him, he slammed his hand on the ground, popping him up into a standing position, his blanket falling to the ground.

“Holy shit! Look how jacked he is…”

Samuel took a step forward, causing the three men to involuntarily take a step back before they fanned out around him. The first guy rushed in, trying to take him out quickly with a haymaker. Stepping inside the arc of the punch, he grabbed him by the wrist and under the arm, twisting and dropping his center of gravity. As he pushed up with his right hand, he felt the man’s shoulder separate as he went sailing over his head, slamming into the wall upside-down before dropping three feet to land on his head, crumpling into a groaning heap. Continuing his spin, he deflected the straight kick of the next man with his left arm. As the kick started to slide past him, he slid backward, wrapping his left arm under the leg, scooping it up so it rested on top of his shoulder.

Placing both hands on top of the knee, he quickly yanked down, hyper-extending it to the point it popped out of socket. As he stood up to face his final assailant, he felt a sharp burning pain in his side. He clumsily swung at the last guy as he stumbled away a few steps, grabbing his side. Looking at his attacker, he noticed blood dripping off the knife in his attacker’s hand. Backing away from him slowly, Samuel glanced down and saw blood leaking through his clenched fingers. As he put pressure on the wound, the flow of blood gradually slowed. He also noticed the pain rapidly started to fade as well.

I need to take care of this guy before I go into shock.

Samuel turned his body slightly, showing his injured side toward his attacker, hoping he’d take the bait and try and attack him again. What he didn’t expect was the reaction he got. His attacker glanced down at his wound, his eyes growing large before dropping the blade and running off in the opposite direction.

Huh…?

Samuel looked back down at the stab wound to see how bad the injury was. He knew he needed to put pressure on it again or he might bleed to death. Instead of a gaping wound, all he saw was a red line that faded as he watched.

How the hell?

His attention snapped back to reality as he made out the sound of sirens approaching from a distance. Quickly stripping the boots, shirt, and jacket off the unconscious thug he’d slammed into the wall, he threw it all in a pile on the blanket before tying it up into a bundle. Taking one last glance around, he took off down the alleyway in the opposite direction of the guy who stabbed him. As he ran, he tried to make sense of what had just happened and figure out how he’d been able to heal from a stab wound and beating within minutes.

§§§§§§§§§§§§

Cora jammed the call button on her phone again.

“Yeah?”

“Frank… Listen. Leave a couple of the CSI guys on that sidewalk thing, but have the rest come up here, pronto.”

“Huh? Why? Thought you were worried about contaminating the scene down here?”

“Yeah, well, something just took priority. Russo’s dead and it’s a mess. Just get ‘em up here, now.”

“What! How?”

“That’s the question. What I’m seeing here should be impossible. Just send the techs, okay?”

“They’re on their way. This case is really beginning to turn into a cluster, isn’t it.”

“Yeah, yeah it is. I even had someone up here inquiring about our John Doe, but she vanished into thin air. Said her name was Sybil and apparently our John Doe’s real name might be Samuel. I didn’t get the chance to see if she had a last name for him, but get this, it looked like she was wearing the same thing on her left hand that our boy was. When she realized I’d seen it, she pulled her vanishing act.”

“Damn, do you think it’s worth the effort to try and lock down the hospital to try and catch her?”

“With the way she got out of this room without me or anyone else noticing, I doubt she’d have any problems dodging our guys. Anyway, get up here as soon as you can, see if you can make any sense out of this mess up here.”

“Sure thing, I’ll just give the geeks their marching orders and I’ll be right up.”

Putting her phone back in her pocket, she looked back into the supply closet. What she was seeing in front of her just didn’t add up. How it could happen without anyone noticing was beyond her. More importantly, how was it even possible. She’d just have to wait for CSI to tell her the details. Glancing toward the ceiling, she looked at Russo’s body. Granted, his head was dangling at an unnatural angle, but what was more bizarre was how he was pinned to the cinder block wall with two broken mop handles.

“So where we headed?”

“To an alleyway about twelve blocks from here.”

“For what, exactly?”

“Well, after our boy disappeared, I put out the word to let me know if anything odd or unusual happened in the vicinity. Seems a group of guys got ‘jumped’ over there. Apparently three of the four weren’t able to get very far. A dislocated knee here, broken ankle there. If it’d been any other night, I woulda just ignored it, but after the craziness we just went through and it’s proximity, I didn’t think it’d hurt to check it out.”

Cora stared out the window as Frank drove, trying to make sense of the whole evening. When they’d left, the techs were still trying to figure out how someone could drive a wooden broomstick through someone, let alone a cinder block wall. It just didn’t make sense. Sure, she’d heard about stuff like that happening during tornadoes, but this was inside a janitor’s closet less than fifty feet away from the nurses station. How could something generate that much force in a broom closet? Better yet, how come nobody had heard it? It seemed every question only led to more questions instead of answers.

“Cora?”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she glanced over at Frank.

“Sorry, lost in thought. You were saying?”

“No problem. Was just thinking about your mystery woman. You said she disappeared?”

“Yeah, one minute she’s walking around the room, then you called. By the time I looked back up, POOF, she’s gone. I’m not sure what to make of it. When I’d been talking to her, she was making lots of noise walking around the room with those boots of her’s. When I turned away for a second, I never heard her leave. So either she was playing me by purposely being noisy while walking around, or there’s something very bizarre happening here.”

“Bizarre you say?” he asked, running his fingers through his hair, “there hasn’t been one thing normal about this case since we picked it up. An unconscious guy found in a warehouse, no marks or identification on him, wearing a piece of jewelry that probably costs more than I make in a year and impervious to damage as far as we can tell, surrounded by over thirty bodies. The whole place is covered in cuts, gouges, claw marks, bullet holes, and all sorts of strange puddles of goo and other crap our guys can’t identify.