This chapter is actually one of my shortest this book, but I hope it isn't noticeable. Sooo much happens this chapter. We finally find out why Thompson has checked out of his life, we finally get a confrontation between Max and El, and Thompson and James, and finally, finally, the heroes confront the mysterious killer. A new weakness is exposed in one of our heroes (to be expanded upon next chapter), and another of our heroes confronts the killer directly, and is soundly defeated.
Also notice that, near the end of this chapter, I quote, almost word for word, a passage from Chapter Two explaining the absolute truths regarding Max's powers, the things that he knows with absolute certainty are true. It also reiterates one of Max's key, defining beliefs. This is to remind readers of these things and make sure that the wham line spoken by the killer has the intended impact.
Also notice that, near the end of this chapter, I quote, almost word for word, a passage from Chapter Two explaining the absolute truths regarding Max's powers, the things that he knows with absolute certainty are true. It also reiterates one of Max's key, defining beliefs. This is to remind readers of these things and make sure that the wham line spoken by the killer has the intended impact.
This is the final turning point for this book. Everything from this point forward is a straight shot toward the climax. Having seen magic first hand now, along with some pretty solid evidence that Max isn't the killer that they are after, will James and Thompson join forces with our heroes and help them bring this mystery man down, or will they rededicate themselves to bringing Max in, continuing to act as an obstacle? Find out next time, along with a bunch of other stuff, because next time is going to be a pretty exposition-heavy one.
Confrontation, Part Three
Max reacted so quickly that he was almost surprised. Before Thompson could take a shot, or demand Max’s surrender, or whatever it was that he was planning to do, Max slung a knife from his belt, jamming it in the barrel of Thompson’s gun, and knocking it away.
“Stand down, Detectives,” Max said to Thompson and James, holding his hands up, showing that there were no other weapons in his hands, “I’m not your enemy.”
“Is she?” Thompson asked accusatorily, gesturing toward the place where El stood in hiding behind cover. El put her helmet on, not bothering to tuck her hair inside like she usually did, while Thompson stepped back and reached for a light switch.
“Don’t do that,” Max told Thompson hastily, reaching for his belt. Thompson froze. James watched nervously, looking from Max to Thompson and back, as if he was unsure what to do. “We are not your enemies,” Max began again. “In fact, we are trying to find the same man that you are, so that we can stop him.”
Thompson ignored him, “You’re under arrest. Both of you. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”
“Detective, please,” Max insisted, “we’re all after the same thing-.”
“You have a right to an attorney,” Thompson interrupted, raising his voice enough to drown Max out, “but really, I don’t know an attorney crazy enough to defend you.”
Max sighed, “I don’t have time for this. Sorry, detectives, but we’re too close to be stopped now.”
He ignored James for now, since he wasn’t doing anything, and focused all of his will on Thompson. His Soul of Life glowed, and smoke billowed from beneath his shirt and from inside his sleeves. It wrapped Thompson’s body in an instant, and Max felt their minds connect, drudging up Thompson’s greatest fears. Max planned to use them to subdue Thompson, but in that moment he felt something unexpected.
Like El, Thompson’s greatest fear was to relive a painful memory. Somehow Thompson realized that that memory was about to breach the surface of his mind, and he bore down upon it, pushing the memory down, and pushing Max away. Max pushed back instinctively, and he shattered Thompson’s resolve. Suddenly they were both within Thompson’s painful memory, reliving it from a skewed perspective, as El had relived hers. Rather than everything looking overly large, however, Thompson’s perspective was one of isolation and darkness. Shadows separated him from the person with whom he conversed.
“You don’t understand,” Thompson insisted. “They need me here.”
“I need you too, Jeff,” replied the figure who shared Thompson’s memory with him. She turned to face him, her face shrouded by the darkness which surrounded Thompson himself. Despite this, though, Max could tell that she was middle-aged like the detective, and quite pretty.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Thompson asked. “You’ll still have me if we stay here.”
“Every day, Jeff,” the woman said, her form growing larger and more daunting, the gap between her and the detective growing wider, “you go out into the streets and you risk your life. Every day I worry that you aren’t going to come home. The kids can’t do it anymore.”
She looked over at him, and I could feel her anger and his fear swirling together, as the gap between them widened even more. When she spoke again, her voice sounded sad, but firm, “I can’t do it anymore. If you take this position, you’ll spend most of your time at a desk, in a much safer town. We’ll be able to focus on a part of our life together without the constant demand of your job hanging over us. And you’ll still be doing what you love. You’ll still be helping people. But if you stay here...”
Max could feel Thompson coming to a decision point. One part of him wanted to agree with her, but another part of him wanted her to listen, and to agree with him that his place was here. The latter part won out, he gave the woman his answer, and she turned away. The scene faded to blackness, and then blinked into existence again, but it had changed. The woman and two children sat in a car, as Thompson looked on, and they drove away, leaving him completely alone.
Max was shocked. All of this happened in only a second or two, real time. Rarely did Max connect with someone’s mind so completely. He felt like he had violated the detective, and in a way, he had. Thompson had seen the images as well, so when Max instinctively broke the connection between them, his smoke instantly dispersing, it took him a moment to recover, but it took Thompson even longer. He was sweating and breathing heavily. He didn’t seem to be entirely aware of where he was. Max felt guilty for forcing this overall good man to relive something so painful to him. He hesitated.
“Detective Thompson?” James asked, and when his partner didn’t respond, he turned to Max and demanded, “What did you do to him?”
Max ignored him. He glanced over at El, who nodded at him. She had her bow held ready, an arrow knocked. All in one swift motion she swung out from behind the shelf which offered her cover and raised her bow, taking aim between the two detectives, ready to let her arrow fly in the direction of either at a moment’s notice. James had just enough time to look over and see El with her weapon drawn, before the attention of everyone in the room was drawn to the darkest corner, where a dark figure suddenly appeared.
The man was tall, and the shadows seemed to cling to him like a second skin. Max tried to cut through the darkness with his gaze and see the details of the man’s face, but he couldn’t. The man slunk toward the two groups, his hands held behind his back. He seemed to step right out of the place where the two walls met, as if the intersection of the two was a doorway to him. He spoke, his voice oily and slick.
“You four are endlessly amusing,” he said, “but I don’t have time to watch you try to kill each other. You have something that’s mine.”
Together Max and El looked at the file still sitting atop the cabinet, and then at each other. They both knew with everything that they were that this could only be the man they were looking for. In the second it took them to reach this conclusion, the man lunged for the file. Max jumped into action. He stepped between the man and his quarry, and smoke erupted from beneath his clothes, pushing the man back. The smoke reformed beneath Max’s feet, and he slid toward the man at high speed. He took a knife from his belt and struck, but the man deftly dodged, and drew a weapon of his own. He drew back and swung his knife, and Max was surprised when some kind of ethereal blade was produced from it, flying toward the air at high speed. Max had just enough time to brandish his own knife and deflect the spectral weapon. It spiraled away and lodged in one of the shelves before fading from existence.
The man laughed, a sound which was somehow familiar to Max. Max was taken aback. Now he understood how this man was able to kill the way he did. Each swing of the strange, dark-colored razor that he held in his hand produced a different blade, and no two were exactly the same.
This power also made the man an incredibly dangerous foe. He could stay in one place and attack leisurely while striking as if he were very close and attacking with his full strength, if the pain in Max’s hand and the damage to the shelf were any indication. The man continued to laugh, swinging twice more. Twice more Max swung his his own knife to deflect them. One was knocked wide, lodging itself in a nearby wall. The other Max wasn’t fast enough to deflect completely, and it dug about half an inch into his shoulder. He felt blood seep into the fabric of his shirt, and run down his right arm. This man was testing him.
Alright, Max thought, if that’s what you want. Smoke billowed again from beneath his clothing, curling into tendrils and grabbing up the rest of the knives from Max’s belt. The smoke circled him, swinging the knives wide. He struck with two of them, launching them toward the man at high speed. The man swung wildly, creating a barrage of spectral blades, two of which deflected Max’s knives. The rest carried on through. Max shuffled the smoke surrounding him, swinging the knives that now floated around his body, deflecting blade after blade, but they just kept coming.
I can keep fighting at this level for a while longer, Max thought, even as he deflected another barrage, but I’m already worn out. My power isn’t limitless. I only have so many blades, whereas his are infinite. Every move I make, even through my magic, puts proportionate strain on my body, while his movements are casual and easy. I can’t defeat this man, not as I am now, not using physical assets. But there is one way.
Max dissolved instantly into smoke, which dispersed on all directions as spectral blades passed through him. He felt every hit, but lucky for him, in this form he couldn’t bleed. Even as he lost his ethereal grip upon his many knives, he shuffled around the open interior of the room, weaving between shelves and cabinets, careful to draw attention away from the others. The man continued to strike furiously, and Max kept moving toward him, enduring it all. Just as the pain was almost too much, just as Max was to a point where he would have to reform, and the flying spectral blades would shred him completely, he reached his quarry. He reformed inside the man’s reach, and looked into the man’s eyes. He was taken aback by the darkness that he saw there right on the surface. Max ignored it, however, and his Soul of Life glowed with golden light as he reached into the mysterious man’s mind.
After encountering the first person capable of resisting his basic powers through force of will, Max learned two absolute truths about his abilities: that his ability to pull information from peoples' minds could fail, and that no matter what, no one could fail to tell the Reaper their greatest fears if he met their eyes, and asked them. That was where the Max's true strength came from. Despite his moniker, the Reaper was not death, but fear itself, and everyone is afraid of something.
Everyone.
So, when Max met the man’s eyes, and he couldn’t pull anything from his mind, he thought little of it. This man’s will must be strong to use Shadow Magic effectively anyway. So Max concentrated more, and he asked the man, “What do you fear?”
The man smiled wickedly. He gazed back in the direction of Max’s eyes, as if he could really see them, as if the darkness that hid them was no obstacle. When the man spoke, Max could hear the honesty in his voice. Max acknowledged fear as an integral, unavoidable part of life, and it was his greatest weapon against others. When the man spoke, Max couldn’t move, and he couldn’t think, because the man’s answer was impossible:
“I fear nothing.”
In an instant whatever grip Max had on the man’s mind was broken. Max felt like he was outside of his own body, so when the man brought his blade down across Max’s chest, he barely felt it. It did, however, draw him back to his senses. He looked down at the broad wound spread from his right shoulder to just above his navel, and then, sluggishly, looked back up at the man, just in time to see him raise the razor weapon again for a killing blow, his grin wider than ever. Just before he could strike, however, he was struck himself. There was a bang, and the man was winged by a poorly-aimed bullet.
The man looked back over his bloodied shoulder, and there was James, his weapon drawn and trained on the man. Beside him stood El. She was shaking even worse than he was, but upon seeing Max injured, she was able to raise her bow again. Even Thompson was coming out of his psychologically-induced stupor. The man seemed to suddenly realize how outnumbered he was, as if he’d allowed himself to get carried away. He laughed again, and El flinched. James looked over toward her, and in that moment, the man pushed past Max, grabbed the file off of the file cabinet, and surged forward, toward the opposite corner. James fired again, his second bullet more true, but it didn’t matter. The bullet hit only air. The man was gone, and before anyone could react, Max collapsed in a pool of blood.
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