Wesley Snipes - Talon of God

“Then we’re at an impasse,” Black said. “’Cause I’m never going to want what you’re selling, and I’m never going to stop coming after you.”

“And I’ll never stop offering you an out,” Talon said, grabbing the weighted chain Black had dropped when he’d hit the ground. “But the ball’s in your court now. You’re a smart man, Lincoln. When you’re tired of being on the losing side, let me know. I’ll always be waiting to lift you up.”

“I don’t want your pity!” Lincoln roared, struggling as Talon wrapped the chain around him, pinning his arms and legs to his body until he was trussed up like a roast. “Let me go, you damn—”

But Talon was already walking away, leaving the defeated assassin screaming impotently at the top of his lungs. It was a temporary solution. Black was nothing if not resourceful. Even a chain wouldn’t hold him for long. He would be a problem again soon enough—he always was. Tonight, though, he was out, and Talon had bigger problems, starting with the Z3X factory beneath him.

The workers must have fled during his fight with Black, because by the time Talon reached the floor of the warehouse where the vats were churning, all the control stations had been abandoned, the machines left pumping and churning on their own.

With no one in his way, it took only a few minutes for Talon to shut down the whole operation. When he’d rendered all the machine control consoles into metal slag with his sword, Talon turned his attention to the foreman’s office, and poked through the scattered papers and spilled beers until he spotted what he was looking for: a brand-new cell phone sitting in its charger, its screen bright and unlocked, ready to be used.

“God provides,” Talon said, wiping his bloody hand on the scattered papers before picking up the phone to tap in Lauryn’s number.

By the time Lauryn finally made it out of St. Luke’s hellhole of a house, she’d never been happier to breathe fresh air. That was, until she saw what was floating in it.

“Damn,” she whispered, almost dropping her new sword as she craned her head back to stare at the massive shadow hanging low in the smoky sky.

It wasn’t complete, not yet, but what Lauryn could see left no doubt in her mind that this was the same castle she’d seen on death’s threshold. It got clearer as she watched, the lines of the horrible towers emerging from the black smoke like a ghosts through the fog.

“Damn,” she whispered again, darting down the mansion steps. “Damn, damn, damn. ”

In the rush since she’d woken from death with a sword in her hand, Lauryn hadn’t had a chance to stop and sort things out. She still wasn’t precisely sure what was happening, but one look at the sky was enough for her to know they were running out of time. But even though the rest of the world seemed to be sliding into chaos, there was one good thing waiting for Lauryn when she stumbled out the mansion doors, and he was standing next to her brother.

“Will!”

Will was leaning on the door of Robbie’s car clutching his wound, his face taut and angry. Beside him, Robbie was pacing nervously, biting his nails as he’d done when he was a kid. They both looked enormously relieved to see her, which was only fair since Lauryn had never been happier to see two people in her life.

“I’m sorry, L,” Robbie said as she ran toward them. “I tried to keep him in the car, but—”

“It’s okay,” she said, running to hug them both. “I’m just glad you’re alive.” She pulled back to have a look at Will’s wound. “How are you feeling?”

“Not bad considering I got shanked,” Will said, glaring at Robbie, who winced. “But, Lauryn, what the hell were you thinking going in there alone? You could have been—”

“I know,” Lauryn said, cutting him off before she had to lie about the fact that she had been through every bad thing Will was clearly about to say, including death. Because none of that mattered anymore. They had bigger problems to deal with.

“Come on,” she said, tossing her sword into the car. “We need to go.”

“Nice sword, sis.”

“Thanks,” she said with a tight grin.

“Go where?” Will demanded. “Lauryn, what happened to you in there?”

She sighed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” Will said, glancing up at the shadow of the castle in the sky. “My suspension of disbelief is pretty high right now. I mean, last thing I knew, I was dead from a gut wound, and then I wake up feeling pretty decent only to find Robbie shooting what looked like zombies off the car with my gun.”

“You should just be happy I got them before they got you,” Robbie said, his eyes wild and shaken. “This apocalypse crap is nothing like the video games.”

“I’m afraid it’s about to get worse,” Lauryn said grimly. “That thing in the sky? It isn’t going to stay a shadow much longer. We have to stop it before that happens.”

“How the hell do we do that?” Robbie cried.

Lauryn’s shoulders slumped. She had no idea. She hadn’t known what to do when she’d asked to come back, and she still had no clue. All she knew was that if she was, in fact, chosen for this task, then there had to be a specific reason God had picked her out of everyone else. Whatever the answer was, it had to be something only she could do, a solution only she could find. Maybe she was meant to find a cure or—

“Damn,” Will said, glancing over his shoulder. “They’ve spotted us.”

Before Lauryn could ask what he was talking about, she saw it. Outside the mansion’s walls, figures were moving down the street, their bloody eyes glistening in the light of the street lamps as they peered through the gate Robbie had plowed down when he’d driven them in.

“You just had to break the gate,” Will said, checking his gun. “ And you used up all my ammo.”

“Hey, I was just trying to survive,” Robbie said, jumping into his car as fast as he could. “Let’s go!”

Will got in more slowly, wincing as he bent over to squeeze himself back into the car’s rear seat. “Too bad we don’t have a fire hose full of that holy water stuff you used on Robbie,” he grumbled. “Couple thousand gallons of that and we could just wash all this away.”

Lauryn froze, her eyes going wide, and then she lurched down to grab Will. “What did you say?”

“That you could wash it all away,” he repeated, giving her a funny look. A deserved one, because from the way her cheeks ached, Lauryn knew she had to be grinning like a maniac.

“That’s it!” she cried.

Will looked more confused than ever. “What’s it?”

Lauryn couldn’t answer; she was too busy working things through. It was all snapping together in her head—what she’d learned from Talon, St. Luke’s explanation, what she’d seen on the other side—and as the pieces connected, a plan began to form in her head.

“I got it,” she whispered, clenching her fists in triumph before she leaped into the car.

“Got what?” Will demanded as Robbie hit the gas.

Before Lauryn could answer, her phone buzzed in her pocket. The number wasn’t one she recognized, but at this point she was happy to talk to anyone who was still sane, and she wasted no time raising the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

The deep, familiar voice made her eyes close in happiness. “Talon!”

“Holy crap, for real?” Robbie cried. “Talon’s still kicking after Lincoln Black?”

“Of course,” Lauryn said proudly. “Who do you think you’re talking about?”

By the time she finished, her brother’s eyes were wide as billiard balls, and she grinned into the phone. “I think you’ve impressed the jaded youth.”