Mercury Read online

  Mercury

  The Battlecry Series - Book Three

  Emerald Dodge

  Mercury by Emerald Dodge

  www.emeralddodge.com

  © 2018 Emerald Dodge

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For permissions, contact:

  [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Cover by Mario Lampic.

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  Also by Emerald Dodge

  The Battlecry Series

  Ignite (Prequel Novelette)

  Battlecry

  Sentinel

  Mercury

  Enclave Boxed Sets

  Of Beasts and Beauties

  The Oceanus Series

  Sea of Lost Souls

  House of the Setting Sun (coming soon)

  Valley of the Shadow (coming soon)

  Crown of Sorrows (Prequel Novelette)

  Other Works

  Novenas for Mothers

  Novenas for Students

  Novenas for Singles

  This book is dedicated to Sarah Gonzales, of course. Whether I need a laugh, a cry, sage advice, or just an ear, you’ve always been there. The days are long, but twenty years have flown by.

  Here’s to many more.

  Contents

  Item One

  Chapter 1

  Item Two

  Chapter 2

  Item Three

  Chapter 3

  Item Four

  Chapter 4

  Item Five

  Chapter 5

  Item Six

  Chapter 6

  Item Seven

  Chapter 7

  Item Eight

  Chapter 8

  Item Nine

  Chapter 9

  Item Ten

  Chapter 10

  Item Eleven

  Chapter 11

  Item Twelve

  Chapter 12

  Item Thirteen

  Chapter 13

  Item Fourteen

  Chapter 14

  Item Fifteen

  Chapter 15

  Item Sixteen

  Chapter 16

  Item Seventeen

  Chapter 17

  Item Eighteen

  Chapter 18

  Item Nineteen

  Chapter 19

  Item Twenty

  Chapter 20

  Item Twenty-One

  Chapter 21

  Item Twenty-Two

  Chapter 22

  Item Twenty-Three

  Chapter 23

  Item Twenty-Four

  Chapter 24

  Item Twenty-Five

  Chapter 25

  Item Twenty-Six

  Chapter 26

  Item Twenty-Seven

  Chapter 27

  Item Twenty-Eight

  Chapter 28

  Item Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About Sea of Lost Souls

  Sea of Lost Souls - Preview

  Item One

  Excerpt of letter sent from Ernest Bell to his father Josiah, dated 1874.

  …I have received word that our Energizing Solution is immensely popular with the immigrant populations in the cities, especially those that work from dawn to dusk in the factories. In his last letter Thomas told of selling several cases to a redskin from Arizona and that he secured a contract with the Jew-men in Los Angeles, but I did warn him that we don’t want our products associated with those populations. Profits are also rising in the South with sharecroppers and freedmen.

  I have seen children born from mothers who drank it while with child and marvel at their height, which can be a whole half foot above their peers…

  1

  Jillian was being tortured to death. I wouldn’t be able to save her in time.

  I didn’t know it for sure, couldn’t prove it, couldn’t do anything but face the reality that I’d undoubtedly been outsmarted by my older brother, Beau. He’d probably purposely left Graham to die on the floor of the kitchen, knowing full well Ember’s telepathy would pick up the final memories of Jillian’s abduction.

  Why else go to the trouble of burning Jillian before taking her unless he wanted me to see the burn and hear her scream?

  “Because he’s a psychopath,” Ember growled from the passenger seat. “Stop thinking like that.”

  My telepathic teammate popped her last remaining anti-nausea pill into her mouth and took a swig of water. I wasn’t sure whether this latest wave was from the bug she’d contracted or the images she’d seen in my head.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  I relaxed my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and tried to still the cyclone raging in my mind. I’d spent nearly every minute of the last eight hours mulling over my team’s predicament. The surge of confidence I’d felt upon leaving our headquarters to begin the rescue mission had quickly dampened as I pondered what lay ahead of us.

  When we arrived in Baltimore, we’d have to locate the Baltimore superhero team. If they didn’t attack me on sight for the crime of being Benjamin Trent, ex-supervillain and one-time almost-murderer of one of their members, we still had to convince them that a team of trained assassins, called a strike team, was zeroing in on them.

  After we fought the strike team and managed to survive, we would still have to travel south to Annapolis and…what? Storm my old house and rescue Jillian?

  I was certain she was being held in my childhood home, with its convenient basement dungeon in which countless people had been “interrogated,” but I of all people knew how difficult that task would be. Perhaps Beau truly didn’t know that I knew he had my wife, but he wasn’t stupid. He would expect some kind of reprisal. We were superheroes.

  And if we somehow managed to succeed at rescuing Jillian, the Baltimore and Saint Catherine teams would then attempt to find the wretched chemical potion that had started all the trouble in the first place. The bottle of JM-104 was the holy grail of all supervillains, and its location was the information my brother—and mother—wanted so badly from Jillian. She didn’t know where it was, yet she’d have to maintain under torture that she did, but wouldn’t tell.

  After that, we’d destroy it, possibly fight some supervillains, and then we’d all go home.

  I had to consciously relax my fingers again. Even the “easy-sounding” order of events sounded impossible.

  I took a steadying breath and glanced in the rear-view mirror, in which I could see the grim faces of my other two teammates.

  Marco was staring out the window, lost in thought. He’d only spoken during the trip to ask me random questions about how I controlled the vehicle, which I assumed was to keep his mind off our dark mission.

  Reid had finally fallen asleep while we drove through Waldorf, Maryland, appar
ently exhausted after asking me question after question about Beau, his cronies the Rowe twins, and any known supervillains in the Baltimore area.

  We passed a sign for Baltimore. We’d be there in less than twenty minutes.

  I swallowed the bile that continually rose in my throat, then forced myself to mentally divide up the tasks ahead of us. The image of Jillian, sick and powerless, in my brother’s inhuman, metal hands was a thought-stopping horror—I could not allow myself to dwell on it if I wanted to find her in time. I had to focus on the immediate.

  Right now, that was locating and alerting the Baltimore team.

  “Marco, wake up Reid,” I said. “He’ll need to be ready when we enter the city.”

  Already the thick forest that lined our approach into Baltimore had thinned and widened, with high cement walls soon replacing the woods. Graffiti marred much of them, and all were crumbling and faded. Within minutes, our ancient truck sped over a wide bridge, and we were in Maryland’s largest city.

  I’d committed many crimes here. Yet, as the morning sun shone weakly through thick snow clouds, I failed to recognize the sights around me. On our right stood two stadiums, but bookish me had always preferred more scholastic pursuits. A sign on our left pointed the way to the Inner Harbor and the aquarium, but I’d never seen or been to either of them. My jobs had been confined to grimy industrial areas, not the bright world of downtown.

  “Turn right here,” Ember ordered. She was staring at her tablet, which displayed a website about the Baltimore team. “Then another right in three blocks. Their house is at the end of the road.”

  I turned the truck down the residential streets. The homes were no longer tidy townhouses and brownstones, but tired old family homes with sagging porches, bars on the windows, and no front yards. It didn’t surprise me that Baltimore’s team lived in such a neighborhood; from what I’d heard, my team had lived in an even crummier house before I met them.

  I parked the truck in front of the squat little house and opened the door. A blast of biting wind raised the hairs on my neck, reminding me that we’d driven into the path of an oncoming snowstorm. Indeed, flat dark gray clouds were gathering overhead, warning of imminent precipitation.

  I gritted my teeth. Just what we need.

  Ember hopped out and narrowed her eyes at the front door. “Someone’s home, but I can’t tell who. They’re sleeping, but not dreaming. It’s only one person.”

  “Well, we know it’s not Peter,” Marco said. “So whoever it is, they’re friendly. Let’s go.”

  Peter, whom I’d long known as Imperator, had been killed by his team only hours before. My team had spent a while during the car ride theorizing the circumstances of his death. All of them agreed that Peter’s death had probably been less murder, more self-defense. Apparently, Peter, who’d been able to manufacture and manipulate fire, had been overly fond of burning his teammates for the most minor infractions.

  As I’d listened to their reports, I’d idly wondered if the heroine I’d shot, Artemis, had been so punished for nearly dying.

  God, I hoped the person in the house wasn’t Artemis.

  I knocked on the door. When nobody answered, I moved to peer through the window to the left, but Reid pushed past me.

  “There’s no time for that now,” he said, raising his hand. His eyes were white.

  A small boulder burst out of the earth behind us and soared over our shoulders and through the door, splintering it with a loud crash.

  Reid gestured to the large hole.

  “You know,” Marco said conversationally, “If someone did that to our door, I’d kill first and ask questions second.”

  We all paused, waiting for the onslaught of superpowered fury.

  None came.

  I wordlessly clambered through the hole, my eyes darting around the drafty foyer. The living room to the right contained many ancient chairs and couches, but no Baltimore team-member. The kitchen was similarly deserted, though several cracked and chipped mugs were littered around the counters. A plain teapot sat on the stove. Someone had been here recently.

  “Upstairs,” Ember whispered, gazing up the narrow wooden stairwell. “They’re not asleep anymore, but—”

  We all froze and stared at the top of the stairs.

  A massive Bengal tiger slunk down the steps towards us, silent as death. Dried flecks of blood covered its muzzle, and its green-gold eyes glimmered despite the low light in the house.

  The cat, which had to be at least six feet long and five hundred pounds, never took its eyes off my face. I couldn’t recall any of the Baltimore teammates being tigers, but this one knew me.

  I took a cautious step back.

  “Everyone,” Ember breathed, her voice placating, “This is Abby, but she calls herself Tiger when she’s in this form.” Tiger jerked her head towards Ember, pausing with her foreleg in the air. Her eyes narrowed infinitesimally. “Yes,” Ember said quietly. “I’m a telepath. I’m from the Saint Catherine team. That man there is Reuben’s brother Reid. We’re your friends.”

  The large green-gold eyes jerked back to me.

  “He’s good now,” Ember said. “He’s a hero. He won’t hurt you or Artemis, I promise.”

  There was a bizarre sucking sound, and the tiger appeared to dissolve inward. In its place, a small young woman with sallow skin, stringy, waist-length mouse brown hair, and large blue eyes was clambering to her feet. Behind the curtain of her hair, I could see smears of blood around her mouth. She wore the Baltimore uniform with which I was familiar, but the black thermal top and khaki pants hung loosely on her emaciated frame. I was torn between wondering where her clothes went when she transformed and how the blood had gotten onto her face.

  Abby steadied herself and squared her shoulders. She walked right up to me, and for a brief second she stared into my eyes without blinking.

  She punched my throat.

  Item Two

  English translation of an excerpt of a letter sent from Maria Sangiacomo, resident of New York City, to her sister Ludovica Vallalunga, resident of Catanzaro, Italy, dated March 1885.

  …I have passed along your greetings to Marco, and will continue to pray for the safe delivery of your child and that Our Lord spares you the agonies of childbed that I suffered, which has caused me to not bear but the one child…Cristiana has grown out of her school dress though the year has not yet passed…She is a tall girl, near to my shoulder though she be just eight years old.

  Her disposition is womanly and graceful, and she is a charming child…but I confess that her abilities frighten me, and am only comforted by seeing her receive the Eucharist without the devil being thrown from her…I want her to seek a convent in Italy, but Marco has already written his brother to arrange a marriage with his nephew, that piggy little boy I wrote of in my last letter, Patrizio.

  2

  I fell to my knees, coughing and sputtering. She put her hands on her hips. “Trent shoot Artemis. Trent go cliff jump.”

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I said, wheezing a little. I wasn’t angry, though. In fact, I was a little surprised that she’d chosen so mild an attack.

  “Hey, you can talk,” Reid said, pleasantly surprised. “We were told that Peter had burned the words right out of you.”

  Abby smiled slyly in my direction. “Peter taste good.”

  There was a long silence. “Um, so, Abby killed Peter,” Ember said, wincing. “I think we need to go sit down and hash out what happened.”

  Abby didn’t move. Instead, she looked me squarely in the eye. “Peter hurt Gabriela,” she said calmly. “Artemis go Bird go Metal fight Peter. Peter hurt Artemis. Tiger hurt Peter.” Her wolfish grin made a shiver shoot down my spine. She inclined her head towards me with a devilish squint. “Peter taste good.”

  I recognized the threat.

  “You keep saying that,” Marco said, his voice oddly high. “You didn’t actually eat him, though, right?”

  Abby smiled wider. “Hunt. Kill.”
>
  “Okay, we get it,” Reid said, his face white. “Listen, Abby, where’s your team? The elders have sent a strike team to eliminate you all because you killed Peter. They won’t care about the circumstances. We need to warn the others and come up with a plan.”

  Abby blinked several times, then looked at Ember.

  Ember gasped. “Peter attacked Gabriela. Topher grabbed her and ran off, leaving Berenice and Lark to fight Peter. He burned Lark bad and was going to kill Berenice when Abby showed up.” She grabbed Abby’s hand. “But where did they go, Abby? Think.”