The Pretender (The Soren Chase Series Book 2) (11 page)

He heard a noise behind him and turned around, shining the flashlight. The beam caught another pair of eyes and it, too, disappeared back into the darkness.

Soren’s heart was pounding in his chest. He felt a spark of fear as he sensed that it wasn’t just one or two things in there with him—it was many.

There was a snarling noise behind him and something hit Soren in the back, pushing him forward. Soren kept his balance and jerked his elbow back, hitting something fleshy. His elbow almost seemed to sink inside of it for a moment before he yanked it back out. He pushed away, turning around to face the creature, and shined his light directly at it.

It stood in the beam of light, looking back at him. The creature was humanoid, roughly Soren’s size, but its skin was the color of sandpaper and its amorphous flesh rippled like there were insects crawling underneath it. Its head looked like a burlap sack, with two beady, black eyes that glared at him. Its skin shifted continuously, making it seem like the thing was moving even though it just stood there.

It opened its mouth. There were no teeth, only long, stringy bits of flesh that stretched from the gaping hole it made. It let out a sound between a scream and a snarl.

“A
shirken
,” Soren said. “Goddamn it.”

According to the Japanese, shirkens were the ghosts of people who’d been too greedy in life. In death, their avarice had only grown, and they’d returned to Earth to steal treasure, happiness, and lives. He’d fought one of these things before, and it had very nearly killed him. But the last time he faced such a thing, he hadn’t been holding an assault rifle.

The shirken darted to the left, but Soren anticipated the move, opening fire. The bullets ripped into its torso, punching holes in its chest. That didn’t appear to slow it down and the thing came rushing at him. As it did, Soren remembered the shirken’s weakness. He jerked the rifle up and shot at the thing’s face, aiming for its eyes. His shots caught it in its left eye, spinning the monster around and dropping it to the ground. Soren pointed the flashlight in its direction, watching as black, oozing liquid seeped onto the floor. It was almost too easy.

From all around him, there was the sound of more screaming and snarling. Soren jammed the flashlight back onto his belt, and yanked a flare out from his vest. He took his hand off the rifle briefly so he could twist it, igniting a red flame, and let the flare fall to the ground near his feet.

The red light didn’t extend very far, but it was enough to reveal dozens of shirkens surrounding him. Many had their mouths open, the fleshy strings vibrating as the warehouse echoed with angry sounds.

But they weren’t the only things in the crowd. Scattered among the shirkens, Soren also saw men with ashen skin and absent expressions, which he recognized as stoneskins. He’d never encountered one before, but he’d heard of them. They were a Norse legend, men who had abandoned their comrades during a fight so the gods had turned their hearts to stone. According to myth, stoneskins were incredibly strong; they could break a man in half. They were also allegedly bulletproof.

Behind
them
stood monsters Soren knew only too well: gaunts, the same kind of creature the Council had been creating in Reapoke Forest. They stayed hunched on the ground on all fours, looking at Soren with their faintly glowing, white, bulbous eyes. A few opened their mouths and shrieked, adding to the cacophony around him.

Soren had never faced so many different monsters at once, and there was no way out. But now he knew what he was—and for the first time, he was grateful. He was terrified, afraid he would be overwhelmed by those around him and fail Alex, but he was also exhilarated, eager to find out just how much of a beating he could take.

He grabbed a flashbang from his vest, pulled the pin, and threw it in front of him. The intent of the grenade wasn’t to destroy so much as to distract. A flashbang would blind most attackers for a few precious seconds, allowing Soren to take them out.

He jerked his head to the side and closed his eyes as the grenade went off, and then quickly looked back to see several monsters with their hands over their eyes. Soren fired a barrage of bullets into the shirkens, stoneskins, and gaunts behind him.

He aimed high, hoping a few of the bullets might catch the shirkens in their eyes, their only vulnerable spot, and perhaps slow down the stoneskins.

He didn’t have a chance to see if he killed any of the monsters in front of him because two gaunts came leaping at him from either side. He ducked and rolled forward out of the way. When he came up, he fired a spray of bullets at them as they collided with one another.

He killed them, but felt something large grab him from behind. He looked down to see two sand-colored arms holding him around his chest. The shirken squeezed him so hard he couldn’t breathe. Without pausing, Soren pulled one of the knives from his vest with his left hand and jabbed it behind him. He heard the thing squeal, and he kicked backward, again connecting with that soft flesh.

But suddenly, he had trouble dislodging his leg. He pulled it out with effort and stumbled forward, the knife falling from his grasp. Soren turned and open fire, watching as holes appeared in the shirken’s body. But he didn’t aim high enough, and the creature absorbed the bullets and kept lumbering toward him.

Soren aimed higher, a bullet slamming into the shirken’s right eye. He watched as it fell to the floor, only for two more to emerge from the darkness behind it.

Soren squeezed off another few rounds at the shirken on the left, hitting it right in the face. But as he aimed at the remaining one, he heard the click of his gun as it ran out of ammo.

He didn’t have time to reload. Instead, Soren pushed the assault rifle away, leaving it hanging by the strap. He reached into his vest to grab another gun. But the attacking creature sprinted toward him before he could get to it. It landed on top of him, pushing him to the floor. Its mouth opened large as it snarled. Soren, practically gagging, was overwhelmed by its putrid breath.

He punched it in the face, his hand disappearing inside its skin. When he tried to pull it back, he couldn’t. It was lodged inside the thing.

He kicked at the shirken, trying to push it away from him. But his leg punched straight through the flesh of the creature—and then was also trapped. Soren struggled on the ground, unable to free his hand or his leg. He felt the thing pressing down on top of him. It was trying to absorb him into it, swallowing him whole.

Soren felt along his vest with his left hand, intending to find another knife and cut his way out. Instead, he found a frag grenade. He brought it to his mouth and pulled the pin with his teeth.

“You want to eat, huh?” Soren said. “How about this, you son of a bitch?”

He jammed the grenade into the thing’s mouth, punching another hole through its squishy flesh. For a half second, Soren thought he detected a satisfied look on the shirken’s face as it trapped both of Soren’s hands.

Then the grenade went off, and the shirken’s head exploded in a mass of black liquid. Soren was momentarily blinded and felt an incredible pain in his left hand, which had been holding on to the grenade when it went off. After a few seconds, his vision cleared and he looked at his hand to see a bloodied stump. As he watched, his fingers started to regrow.

It hurt like hell, but he smiled as his hand took shape again. He was starting to see the advantages of indestructibility. He kicked away the body of the shirken, freeing his trapped leg.

Before Soren could stand up, he was grabbed by another hand and hoisted into the air. He looked down to find a stoneskin holding him. It threw Soren into the darkness away from the crowd. Soren hit the floor hard, feeling his legs break and his ribs crack. But they almost immediately began to reset.

He struggled to his feet, making out the dark shapes of several different kinds of creatures coming at him. He pulled two handguns from his vest and began firing, one in each hand. Several of the creatures went down as he fired, but within a few seconds, there was the familiar click as he ran out of ammo.

Soren had no opportunity to reload. He dropped the guns and grabbed a knife from the vest. As the wave of creatures neared him, however, there was a bright flash of light directly in his face. It was the glare of a spotlight coming from high above him, and Soren was momentarily blinded. He shielded his eyes with his hands and looked around. There were stoneskins, shirkens, and gaunts crowding around him, but they had stopped trying to attack. Instead, they stood there. The shirkens snarled while the gaunts shrieked at him. The stoneskins just watched him with hateful expressions. Behind them, Soren could make out at least a dozen dead bodies of shirkens and gaunts.

From above them, Soren heard the sound of someone softly clapping.

“Excellent,” a voice said. “You’re as good as they say.”

Soren looked up to see a man standing at the top of a large, metal stairway at the far end of the warehouse. Beside the man were three figures—a leprechaun that Soren recognized, an older man with a thick black beard, and a small eight-year-old boy.

“Alex!” Soren yelled.

He considered rushing the stairs, but even in the large warehouse he could hear the click of a gun’s hammer being drawn back.

Lochlan held a gun to Alex’s head.

“Not so fast,” the man beside him said. “We need to talk first. And then you get to die.”

Before Soren could react, the man at the top of the steps vanished into thin air.

Soren had seen a creature teleport before—Lochlan’s brother, Keevan—and figured that’s what was happening. But Keevan’s teleportation had been instant. This appeared to take at least some time. There was also a distinct sense of movement, although so quick that the naked eye could barely perceive it. Soren thought he heard a whooshing sound, as if someone had been moving extremely fast.

The man appeared a second later only a few feet in front of him. Soren spotted strands of wispy black smoke at the man’s feet. It wasn’t so much that he reappeared—it almost felt like he had reassembled.

The man in front of him held his arms out like a stage magician craving applause. He appeared no more than thirty years old, only a little younger than Soren himself. Soren looked into the man’s black eyes, trying to figure out if he’d ever heard of a creature like him. Dracula could allegedly turn into mist and move faster than the eye could see, but some instinct told him this wasn’t a vampire. Whatever thing was before him was far worse.

The lights in the warehouse came on and the monsters around them backed off several feet, forming a large circle.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” the man said. “That was a little supervillainy, wasn’t it? Seriously, though, nice show. I missed seeing how you blew the head off that shirken, but that was a neat trick.”

“I’m so glad I could amuse you,” Soren said.

“You should be. It means I’ll probably kill you quicker. Oh excuse me, where are my manners?”

He slapped his forehead in an exaggerated fashion.

“My name is Silas Rakev,” he said. “And you’re the legendary Soren Chase. Lochlan gave me a file and everything. He thought it would be a good idea if we distracted you before I launch my endgame. But I guess that didn’t work, huh? Why is that?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Modest, too,” Rakev said. “About eight months ago, my dreamweaver called me. He knew the type of kids I was looking for, and he told me he’d found a whopper. I was intrigued. But then, he up and vanished. I sent my pet leprechauns out to find the kid and they came back empty-handed. Well, they did bring me a present. But it didn’t work out as planned.”

Soren’s eyes flicked to Lochlan, who continued to hold the gun on Alex. He was too far away to read Lochlan’s expression. Soren had no idea what Rakev meant by “present.” The implication worried him, but he had more pressing problems.

“Still, they didn’t find the kid,” Rakev continued. “And Lochlan said you had something to do with that. You should thank him. He gave me a big song and dance about how we should leave Alex alone. If we picked up Alex, you’d get all stirred up. It seems the Council has its eye on you, did you know that? And trust me, that’s never good. Have you met their dog, Rippon, yet?”

Soren shook his head slowly. He had one more flashbang grenade on his vest, hanging just near his rib cage. He tried to move his hand slowly in that direction. He’d only get one chance at hitting his target, but it had to be a surprise.

“No? I think he goes by the name Randolph Chastain in this world,” Rakev said.

The mention of Chastain jarred Soren. If Rakev knew of him, too . . . well, he didn’t know what it meant, but it wasn’t good.

“I’ve tried to kill that bastard six different ways, but he always comes back,” Rakev said. “He’s like a piece of dog shit—you can scrape him off your shoe, but you never quite get rid of him. Anyway, not important. What
is
important is that you’re very impressive.”

“I’m really pleased,” Soren said. “Impressing you was high on my to-do list, and now I can check it off. And in a few minutes I can check off the kill-the-bastard-who-took-Alex box.”

Rakev smiled broadly. “Not gonna happen. This is where the Soren Chase legend ends, I’m afraid. I need the boy. He’s got enough juice to get me off this stupid rock.”

“Why? Where are you trying to go?” Soren asked.

Rakev nodded his head.

“Well, since I’m going to kill you anyway,” he started, and then abruptly started laughing. “Nah, I’m just kidding. I’ve done enough monologuing already. Blah, blah, blah, evil plan, blah, blah, blah. I’ve got a deadline, and talking to you is a waste of precious time. I just couldn’t help myself.
Some
people say I have control issues.”

Rakev took a single step forward, and Soren inched his hand toward the grenade.

“Do you know what the worst part of being around psychics is?” Rakev asked.

Soren’s hand crept closer to the grenade. He could grab it now, but he needed to pull the pin first if it was going to do any damage.