Bridgette had insisted on working on him after making sure his father got the treatment he needed. He protested, having already gotten the treatment after the concentrated version of the blightshrew toxin it was unlikely to make him anything more than a little sick, but James and Victoria all but held him down as the woman put him under to take a scalpel to his chest.
Marcus woke with the slight bounce of wheels touching tarmac, chest aching and eyes burning. He tilted his head to see his father laying down beside him, fast asleep with gentle snores. Grumbling, he pushed himself up, batting at James hand as he moved to keep him down.
“Come on, you just had your chest split open.” James complained.
Marcus leveled his gaze on him and shook his head. “Just the skin, don’t be so dramatic.” Even so, he reached up and fingered the bandages around his torso and then the center of his chest where his skin stretched and tightened with each movement. He winced slightly as he pressed his digits along the edges, testing to ensure it was anchored properly.
“Don’t mess with it,” James reached out and pulled his hand away. “You need to take it easy. We’ve got New York still.”
“Mhmm…” Marcus looked back at his dad and swallowed. “Bridgette say how long he’d be out?”
“Hard to say. Not a lot of prior cases to refer to. Older guy, but in relatively good shape.” James shrugged. “Safely? Probably a couple days.”
They didn’t have a couple days. Seattle was an utter failure. Now, with proper hindsight, it all seemed a little fruitless. They’d helped some people, sure, but hadn’t actually made a dent in what Arcanex was doing. Really, they’d just kicked the hornet’s nest a few times.
“Need you to get him home, then get with Victoria and get to my motel room.” Marcus pushed himself up, wavering as the plane taxied into the hangar.
“And you’re going to…?”
Marcus took a moment to survey the cargo hold of the plane until his eyes fell on several lumps of dark fur. “I’ve got a real funeral to go to.” Marcus pulled the jumpsuit over his torso, the smell of body odor and blood wafting up at him as he adjusted it around the bandages and bringing a tear to his eye.
“You just gonna throw a thousand pound animal over your shoulder and carry it out into the woods then?”
Marcus shifted his gaze back and forth, looking utterly incredulous before nodding. “Yeah.” He patted his stomach. “Strength me up, magic man.”
“Of course…” James grumbled under his breath as he reached into a pocket to pull out a stick of charcoal.
“The hell are you doing up?” Victoria snapped at him as she wandered into the hold.
“We’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.” Marcus shrugged as the green runes on the suit seemed to siphon into the ground and dark crimson pushed up into his legs. “I need you to help James with my dad.”
“Str…” Her eyes flicked behind him, and she immediately started shaking her head. “No, you’re supposed to be resting, not hauling dead glimmerfangs out into the woods.”
“That dead glimmerfang sacrificed itself to…” Marcus bit down hard on his lip as tears welled up in his eyes. He stared up at the ceiling, a metallic tang infecting his tongue, then finally took a deep breath and met her gaze again. To her credit, any hint that she was going to stop him left her face. “Just meet me at the motel after dark…we need to figure out New York with just the three of us.”
The plane stopped, and Marcus hurried to the dogs to get them off. Partly because he was certain they were done with the plane, but also because if Bridgette saw what he was about to do, he had the sneaking suspicion his mournful expression would not stop her from beating the brakes off of him.
Kane whined and licked the dead glimmerfangs snout as Marcus squatted, deep crimson runes flaring across his jumpsuit, and grunted through lifting the massive animal up and over his shoulders. Stitches pulled, and he was certain he’d felt at least one pop, but so long as the bandaging held beneath the already skintight jumpsuit, the stone wouldn’t be going anywhere. What was a little more blood?
He’d not bothered to check his phone, but judging by the light as he exited the plane, it must have been somewhere around six or seven in the morning. He fled the area without another word to any of them, leading the glimmerfangs back the direction they’d came from and across the old county road into the wood.
The dogs kept close to him, but were otherwise silent. Even Kane, with his ordinarily playful demeanor when things weren’t life or limb, kept unexpectedly somber. The emotional intelligence of animals never ceased to wow him. He must have walked a solid hour through the dense forest before Kane trotted out in front of him.
Kane stopped at the base of an old tulip poplar, a collection of its flowers having fallen onto the rocks and moss below. He pawed at the largest of the rocks, and Blue moved to help. Soon, all five glimmerfangs worked at the ground to clear away the stones, leaving the soft moss and fallen tulips.
Marcus sniffed as the dogs all laid down around the spot they’d cleared and Kane gave him a huffing breath before dropping his head to the dirt. Stepping around the perimeter they’d created, he gently laid the deceased packmate at the base of the tree and slowly back away. The other five dogs slowly inched closer, nudging at the fallen’s paws and belly and muzzle, occasionally letting out slow, mournful howls.
He’d heard of elephants and other intelligent animals exacting vengeance on humans that killed one of their herd. These glimmerfangs were smarter than any elephant he’d ever met, so it was unlikely they’d blame him for this death, but he’d not blame them if they did. Marcus spent a few more minutes watching them before turning to let them mourn in peace.
The walk from the outskirts of Knoxville to his shitty little motel was painfully long, but it gave him the chance to reconcile his thoughts. If this was going to stop, they needed to cut the snake’s head off. He’d prefer not to kill Ophelia’s father, but his hands had sifted through that bloody river enough times now that it no longer surprised him when the thought arrived. For him, Walter Harris was the epitome of scum. Much like most of humanity, however, that’s not who he was to everyone.
For Ophelia, he was a loving father.
For Arcanex, he was a cunning CEO.
For his shareholders, he was a gold mine.
For the world, he was the answer to a problem they didn’t know he created.
First things first. They needed to deal with New York.
Marcus stopped at a gas station across the street from the hotel and used his remaining cash on a new burner before stepping into his “home.” The yellowing walls, lumpy mattress, and smell of cigarettes that had long seeped into the carpet greeted him with open arms. He turned on the television resting on top of the chest-of-drawers and moved over to the bathroom to peel off his sweats and the jumpsuit beneath.
Grimacing, Marcus pulled the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around his chest back to take a peek and make sure the sigil was still in place. With a finger pressed to the outside where the stone was he tilted his head enough to see it was still in place in a puddle of blood before pressing the wrap back into place. He pulled out the burner and sent a text.
Going to need some fresh stitches when ya’ll get here. No rush.
It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it wasn’t enough blood to have him particularly worried about it. Making sure his father was safe and taken care of was most important right now. His eyes wandered to the shower, a yearning tugging at his gut, but he settled for rinsing his face off in the sink and slapping on a fresh layer of deodorant on his pits before going to lay down.
He closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind, but found himself in his parent’s house. His mother scolding her husband for being such a fool.
“That’s what you get for following these damn kids around with their young knees and sense of justice!”
She paced in his mind as if he were there watching her, arms flailing, inflection falling and rising as she found new insults for them all while talking almost entirely to herself. He could see the concerned look on his sister’s face, even though she knew trying to talk him out of going forward was a moot point.
“You know, when all of this is over, you’re basically going to be famous, right?”
His little brother was almost certainly sifting through every news channel every day, searching for news of their efforts. Whatever Nicky found, he’d find a way to praise him while giving him a gentle ribbing.
“They’re calling you Ángel Pelirrojo on Telemundo. The redheaded angel. Surely that’s not gonna blow up your ego, right?”
The hardest face to imagine was Ophelia's. She’d be thrilled to see him. So happy he was home. Right up until she’d learned he was going back out. A frown settled on his face as his eyes opened. Would he ever be able to escape that frown? Even if he lived through this. If somehow, he came out on top and didn’t have to do something that would change her opinion of him forever. Would he ever be able to stop? His eyes scanned the popcorn ceiling like it might contain some answer to the question, but left him with nothing.
He flinched at the sudden sharp knock at the door, the sudden pain in his chest from his muscles tightening leaving him breathless for a second. The sound came again, and he eased himself up, pulled on a pair of shorts, and moved to the door. He kept his foot in front of the door to stop it before pulling it open enough to peek out.
James adjusted his glasses and raised his eyebrows. “Open the damn door.”
Marcus moved his foot and let them in, James stepping in with a wince at his blood-soaked bandages. Victoria stopped in front of him, rolling her eyes beneath a cocked eyebrow before jerking her head toward the bed.
“Go sit down, you fucking idiot.”
He followed her instructions without any lip, mostly because there was nothing to argue about this time. He sat down on the edge of the bed and waited as she set up a plastic sheet on the bed and along the sides to catch any runaway blood.
“How’s dad?” Marcus asked, looking up at James.
“He’ll be alright, assuming Cassandra doesn’t murder him.” James chuckled. “He was still passed out, so she took it out on us. Never seen anybody yell at Victoria like that.”
“Your mother is terrifying.” Victoria whispered from behind him.
“She got right up in her face like—You better hope that man wakes up or I will curse you and every generation that comes from between your goddess damned legs!—I nearly pissed myself.”
James hopped up to sit down beside the television on the dresser.
Marcus chuckled, though he couldn’t muster his usual amount of levity. Victoria’s fingers slid along his shoulder, softer than they needed to, as she guided him back onto the bed and used a set of weird curved scissors to cut away the bandages on his chest.
“Fuck me…” he heard James mutter under his breath as blood ran down his now bare chest, most of it pooling around his back on the plastic sheet.
“I’m sure you’ve seen worse.” Marcus said, his eyes shifting slowly to the side to look up at Victoria.
“At least it’s not sludge.” James said.
Her eyes flicked in his direction for a split second from the thin syringe she was preparing. She didn’t bother warning him before snatching the stone from his chest like a game of Operation and stuck him several times with the thin needle, leading to a hushed hiss from his lips.
“Don’t be a baby.” She rolled her eyes while threading the curved needle. “New York is going to be a problem. Hank says one of his pilot friends is flying Walter over tomorrow.” Victoria said.
“That’s a problem?” Marcus lifted his head slightly to watch her as she dug the hooked needle into his chest and pulled the skin together to stitch it. The local anesthetic dulled the pain to almost nothing, but the sensation of his skin being pulled together was…strange to say the least.
“We’re down a glimmer fang and a man and a half. Sounds like a problem to me.” James turned away from the scene, his face twisting.
“Its not like we’re running around in broad daylight with targets painted on our asses,” Marcus said. “We’ll just have to be faster. Maybe we go out tonight. Get in and out before he lands?”
“You’re resting tonight.” Victoria’s eyes shifted from where she was stitching his chest back together, as if daring him to argue.
He did not.
“Fine, tomorrow then. We’ll just figure it out as we go.”