Tuesday, January 31, 2012




CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT



...about a week ago...


Dr. Fitzsimons stood in front of them all with his white lab-coat on and a bullet-proof vest underneath it. Accompanied with a pistol on his hip and an Uzi in his hands, and the fifty soldiers backing him up, Dr. Fitzsimons thought he had the upper hand.

This was Jack's chance to make him pay for everything that happened over in Afghanistan. The first thing he needed to do was get his family out of there. Jack stepped back as the troops in swat gear surrounded them, yelling, "Get down!" and throwing tear gas. Jack took two deep breaths of fresh air amongst the encroaching smoke. Within the smoke there was three flashes of light. It settled and there was only Dr. Randolph squirming on the floor, choking and covering his mouth.

Another flash and one of the soldiers screams. He is out of position and missing altogether. The rest of the battalion begins to notice how dark it was getting. The smoke was nearly gone, but the tense Oklahoma air remained. One of the soldiers opens fire as the man next to him is taken away into the shadow. Every other soldier in the circle begins scattering gunshots across the field. Jack then teleports in the middle of the circle of troops in front of his parents house. He stands in the battle-forged suburban street as DarkFlood.

DarkFlood remains in the middle of the lawn just long enough for the circle of soldiers to open fire. The bullets just miss Jack, and keep going, picking off their own teammates. Numbers dwindle from the fifty and now DarkFlood can take them head on.

He jumps in between them and headbutts the first one. Catching the fist of another and ducking a punch from behind, he holds both hands and launches them into the air. The next three topple on top of him and DarkFlood vanished only to reappear above them. He cracks their skulls on the floor and spins around to grapple with the next wave of soldiers.

"ENOUGH!" Fitzsimons screams. He takes his glasses off. As he does so, closes his eyes, only to re-open them and reveal blazin' white irises. The Storm Harvester was still possessing him.

Jack lost balance in his scuffle with the soldiers and took a blow to the gut and and couple jabs to the face. As he struggled, Dr. Fitzsimons screamed again, this time whipping out two lightning bolts from his wrists. They come down hard on both sides of Jack, killing the troops caught in the current.

DarkFlood stood tall and teleported away. Only that is what Fitzsimons thought. He had actually put his camouflage on, turning himself practically invisible. DarkFlood got around Fitzsimons and tried to grab his neck when upon touching the mad scientist's skin Jack was electrocuted. He was blasted back to the ground and DarkFlood laid over on his side, unconscious.

"This time, no damn doctor is gonna save you, Dresden!" Fitzsimons put his foot on Philip to roll him over on his back. He looked around for Randolph. He was gone, no longer squirming on the ground, nor guarding his friend from a distance, just flat out gone.

Fitzsimons laughed. "It told me to be patient. It said this day would come...the day when you would return home Philip Dresden...and now here you are at my mercy once again..."

"...where...." Philip went on in a mustered mutter, "...where...is...she...."

Fitzsimons charged his hand up once again and prepared to finish Philip off, "I'm about to reunite you with her..."

Dr. Randolph drove the car up onto the lawn and hit Dr. Fitzsimons, breaking his body. Dr. Randolph picked up a fallen DarkFlood and carried him into the back seat. He threw his foot on the gas pedal and made a break for it.

Dr. Randolph kept checking the rear-view mirror to see when Philip would wake back up. What he did see was Dr. Fitzsimons get back up off the ground. His body was so broken it looked like it was falling off the Storm Harvester's pure form.