The gathering the last s.., p.1
The Gathering: The Last Storm, Book 2, page 1
THE GATHERING
THE LAST STORM, BOOK 2
SAM SISAVATH
CONTENTS
About The Gathering
1. Cent
2. Torres
3. Cent
4. Torres
5. Mac
6. Torres
7. Cent
8. Torres
9. Cent
10. Torres
11. Cent
12. Torres
13. Cent
14. Torres
15. Benton
16. Cent
17. Torres
18. Cent
19. Torres
20. Cent
21. Mac
22. Torres
23. Benton
24. Torres
25. Cent
26. Benton
27. Torres
28. Cent
29. Torres
Epilogue
ABOUT THE GATHERING
THE NIGHTMARE HAS JUST BEGUN.
They thought the worst was behind them, but they were wrong. Very wrong.
After surviving one brutal night against a creature they call the obayifo, Cent and Torres are unexpectedly reunited when both are recruited by the mysterious billionaire Harold Campbell to join his fight against the creatures that lurk in the shadows.
For Cent, it’s an easy decision: Find and kill the obayifo and rid the world of their scourge. For Torres, it’s a little more complicated. There are forces turning her against people she trusts, with her future—and those of the people she loves—in the balance.
From abandoned basements to dark sewers to secret complexes, Cent and Torres will be inducted into a world they didn’t even know existed until now. And it’s much, much more complicated and vastly more dangerous than they ever thought.
After The Last Storm has receded, it’s time for The Gathering to begin…
1
CENT
Its eyes. They were different and yet, familiar. Black as the night and dark as the bottom of an endless ocean.
Lifeless; and yet, alive.
Somehow, alive.
There was only one inside the dusty basement where it had dwelled for God only knows how long. Only He knew how it had gotten here, or who it used to be when it was still someone and not just an undead thing.
Cobwebs draped the ceilings and covered up corners. Every nook and cranny was infested with some type of living thing. Or formerly living thing. The carcasses of insects big and small, rodents furry and furless, filled the place.
The creature could have settled here weeks ago. Months ago. Maybe even years ago. It was crouched in one of the corners, the stink radiating from every inch of its pruned black flesh, more powerful than anything Cent had ever had the displeasure of enduring. It was all he could do to start breathing through his mouth, but even that didn’t really help.
It took him over two weeks to track it down, which was par for the course. Most people didn’t like to talk about the monster hiding in their shadows. This city and its populace proved no different. But, finally, those efforts had born fruit.
It took Cent three times as long as it should have to come down the stairs, every step creaking under his weight. Old wooden slabs near their breaking point, threatening to drop him without a moment’s notice. But they held, if just barely.
Cent expected it to pounce as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, but it didn’t. Instead, it watched him from the darkness, black eyes glinting against a streak of moonlight that shone through a high window above it. The moonlight was its friend; in the daytime, the sun was its mortal enemy. As if with all things sinful, the light brought forth the truth of the world. And this thing—this creature—had no uses for the truth.
Now, he stood less than three yards from where it perched on the floor, slightly bent over the body of a cat. Or what was left of one. There wasn’t very much there. Even though his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, Cent still found it difficult to make out where the feline’s limbs ended and where the creature’s skeletal frame began.
There was blood on the heavily scarred cement floor, along with patches of fur and organs. The killer didn’t care for organs, whether they be human or animal. It only ever wanted one thing: Blood.
Just the blood.
It’d had to gnaw its way through flesh and muscle and bone to get to that blood. Patience was not something they lacked. The same was true for their appetite. They were insatiable, living only to feed.
There was no telling what this one used to be. Male or female. Young or old. Once they turned and the hairs fell out, they discarded all the things that made them human—clothing, sex organs, and any vanity or embarrassment. His mother and his grandfather called them obayifo. Maybe that was their real name and maybe it wasn’t. None of it mattered.
What mattered was the here and now. In this dark basement, in this part of the city that had long ago pretended the house above him even existed. The creatures thrived in places like these, abandoned by “civilized” people, and only treaded by the bravest of the forgotten.
Cent watched it, a part of him sickened by the sight. The other part was mesmerized. It truly was something that defied all laws of nature, not to mention God Himself.
And yet there it was. Alive, but not really.
Cent breathed in and out…in and out…each time forcing his heartbeat to return to its normal state. It took a lot of work, but he’d learned to control his emotions when he had to. He did that now, willing everything back to normalcy as he prepared himself.
The creature finally stopped bothering with the cat and peered through the shadows at him, beady black eyes focusing in for the first time. Maybe it’d sensed him. Or smelled him. Or, more likely, it’d heard the blood moving through his veins. They could do that. There was something extraordinary about them despite their frail, malnourished appearance. It was one of the things that made them so…complex.
But there was nothing complex about the dark black eyes that zeroed in on him now. His breath quickened slightly. Not by much, only the barest bit. It couldn’t be helped. The heat of upcoming battle was something he couldn’t ignore.
Cent flexed his gloveless fingers around the handle of the knife in his right hand. The weapon was just slightly over sixteen inches long, eleven of those making up the sharp blade that was slightly curved near the center. The remaining six inches made up the dark rosewood handle. Cent had seen militiamen carrying something like it back in his native Nigeria, and he’d always been fascinated. Later, he would learn it was patterned after something called a kukri.
The one he held now looked similar to that traditional Nepalese knife but was his own design, made specifically for his hand. The blade, too, was a novelty: Mostly traditional metal with a thin coating of silver along the edge.
A silver knife, essentially.
The creature’s eyes—tar pits devoid of whites—moved downward, leaving Cent’s face and resting on the knife in his hand. Even in the darkness of the basement, Cent thought he could see the fear that flicked across its face. But that could have just been a figment of his imagination. Did they even feel fear? Did they even feel anything? Or was it all hunger? Insatiable, undying hunger?
Whatever it was that played across its gaunt face, the pruned black flesh of its skin seemed to move, every inch of it like worms twisting just underneath the surface. It was about to attack.
God be with me.
It lunged. Red liquid flitted across the dank basement as the creature opened its mouth, revealing a cavern of jagged, broken teeth. It had lost more than it retained, but what it still had were capable of puncturing Cent’s skin through the layers of clothing and reaching the skin underneath. And then—its ultimate goal—his blood.
A year ago, Cent would have been caught unprepared by the speed of its movement. Despite its frail state, its skeletal frame, the obayifo moved with impossible swiftness, its speed defying all the laws of God.
But this wasn’t a year ago, and Cent was ready.
He sidestepped and it flew past him, swiping out with its left hand as it did so. Or what was left of a hand. There was just a stump there, ending somewhere about the elbow. The wound had been cauterized long ago, looking more like a stump of flesh than anything.
Cent slashed with the knife—
And missed!
It was the angle. He wanted to blame it on the angle, anyway. He’d overestimated his ability to catch the creature while it was in motion. Similarly, he’d underestimated just how fast it could move. This one was faster than the others he’d encountered. Maybe it was the lack of a full arm. Or, maybe, it was just his overconfidence finally catching up with him.
Whatever the case, Cent righted himself quickly. He turned just as the creature stopped and did the same.
It snarled at him before charging again.
Instead of sidestepping this time, Cent swung the blade from right to left and caught the creature across the top of its domed head. The silver-coated edge cut through flesh and bone with barely any resistance, almost as if he were chopping through gelatin dessert instead of what used to be a human skull.
As the creature continued to barrel toward him, its forward momentum carrying it forward, Cent stepped slightly back and to the side, allowing the deformed thing to crash onto the floor face-first.
It laid perfectly still and didn’t try to get back up.
There was a reason Cent used a s ilver-bladed weapon instead of a gun. This was America, and he could have gotten a ghost gun just about anywhere. But guns didn’t do anything to an obayifo except annoy them. Sometimes it didn’t even do that. He’d seen it for himself; the failure to recognize the futility of projectile weapons quickly enough had cost the lives of his friends. For a man like Cent, who avoided friendships, the loss of those men had been heartbreaking. Maybe, he thought, this was why he hadn’t allowed himself the luxury of new friends since.
Cent stood over the creature and waited just in case it wasn’t really dead. You could never be too sure.
Seconds passed.
Then a minute…
“It dead, man?”
The question came from the short black kid perched at the top of the basement stairs. Roland. He was the one who had led Cent here in the first place. Just thirteen years old, though he looked older. Life on the streets did that to you.
Cent slid the knife into the sheath behind his back and turned around. “Yes. It’s dead.”
“You sure, man? ‘Cause 2G thought it was dead too when he shot it with a whole clip, but it got up and ate his ass instead.”
Cent kicked the creature in the side of its head. Coagulated clumps of something that might have been brain matter, blood, or something else sloshed out of the hole at the top of the skull where Cent had struck it.
The creature itself didn’t move.
“Damn,” Roland said. The kid stood up. “Didn’t think anything could kill it. You some kind of special cop or something?”
Cent smiled. “No.”
“You sure? You got the vibe of Five-Oh.”
“I’m not a cop. Special or otherwise.”
“Shit, you got it man. You got it.” He paused for a moment. “What you gonna do with it?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
Cent looked up at the single high window in front of him. He picked up the creature by its bony legs—there wasn’t much flesh or muscle to hold onto, just bones—and dragged it a few feet over to the left. He deposited the obayifo in a spot where it laid almost entirely in a pool of moonlight. When the night gave way to morning, sunlight would pour in through that window and over the creature. Once that happened, there wouldn’t be very much of it left except bones. The flesh would melt away, taking whatever tainted evil that had overcome it, with the new day.
He turned and headed back up the stairs.
Roland was staring past him and at the creature below. “What’d you do that for?”
“So the morning can take it,” Cent said.
“Come again?”
“Come back in the morning. You’ll see.”
“Hell nah. This’s the last time I’m ever coming down here.”
Smart kid.
He said, “Where do you live?”
Roland blinked at him as if Cent had just spoken in a language he didn’t understand.
“Where do you live?” Cent asked again.
“Here, man. I live here. A lot of us do. Until that thing showed up, anyway. Got Michael C. and Tony Cray-Cray when they tried to evict it.”
“It’s yours again, now.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“Cool.” The kid grinned, showing brilliant pearl whites for someone who survived on junk food and soda and probably hadn’t seen a dentist in maybe forever.
They left the basement, Roland leading the way. The kid talked the entire time to the front door. He told Cent about other people that used to live in the abandoned house. They all had names that were clearly made up.
Roland opened the door and stepped outside and froze in place.
Cent reached for the knife behind his back.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Freeman,” a voice said. Female. Unfriendly. But not threatening, either.
Cent walked past a still-frozen Roland to get a look at the speaker.
A woman in a black pant suit and white blouse. She was wearing thin glasses that looked almost invisible against the night air. There was an SUV parked behind her that wasn’t there when Cent first arrived at the house. He couldn’t see anyone inside, but of course the woman wasn’t alone. She might not have sounded very friendly, but being unfriendly and voluntarily driving into a place like this was not the smartest thing one could do. Especially when one was Caucasian and dressed like that.
She stood on the sidewalk. “I come in peace, Calvin.”
“What did you call me?” Cent asked.
“I’m sorry. I forgot that you prefer Cent.”
Cent stayed silent.
Finally, he said, “Who are you?”
“I’m here because of my employer. He’d like to meet with you.” She took something out of her breast pocket and held it out to him.
Cent didn’t move to take it. He also didn’t take his hand away from his sheathed knife either.
“I assure you, he just wants to talk,” the woman said. “We’ve gone to great pains to set up this meeting.”
“How did you find me?”
“A lot of research. It’s something we’re very good at.” There was nothing that sounded like boasting in the way she’d said those words. She was simply stating a truth as she saw it.
“You still haven’t told me who you are.”
“My name is Madeline.”
“I don’t mean your name. I mean who are you?”
A ghost of a smile appeared on her naturally thin lips. “Call this number and find out.”
She didn’t move, but didn’t put the card away, either.
Somewhere behind him, Roland hadn’t moved or said a word. Maybe, like Cent, he couldn’t quite believe Madeline’s presence.
Finally, he took the six steps forward to take the card.
Up close, Madeline was much more attractive, if in a severe sort of way. She was just an inch or two shorter than his own six feet. He hadn’t met many women who was as tall as her who didn’t play for the WNBA.
“What does your employer want?” he asked.
“Just to talk.”
“About what?”
“What you just did in that house. What you did in the Bronx three weeks ago. And San Diego a month before that. Chicago, Tampa Bay, Dallas…” She stopped. For dramatic effect, he assumed. “And Houston, of course.”
Houston. That was a city he hadn’t heard in a while. It was a place he didn’t want to remember, even if it did play a key role in who he was, and what he had done, tonight.
“You know about Houston,” he said.
“My employer does. He shares your goal, Mr. Freeman.”
“Which is?”
“Saving the world, of course.”
2
TORRES
Torres had a long list of regrets in life, but telling the truth was something she didn’t think would ever be on it. And yet, here she was, having told the truth—the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her God—only to see everything fall apart. Her career was gone, as was Macy. Both were forcibly stripped from her. She’d looked high and low for ways to fight back, but it always returned to one thing: Money. She needed a lot of it and she didn’t have it. And what she did have was not enough. Not nearly enough.
Maybe that was why she didn’t answer the phone call the first time.
Or the second time.
Or any other times after that.
The only times she even considered returning a call was when a familiar voice popped up on her voicemail:
“Hey, it’s Will. You’re a hard lady to get ahold of these days. Heard about what happened to you. Abso-fucking-lutely bullshit if you ask me. Anyways, give me a ring if you ever wanna grab a drink. The strong kind, of course. And oh by the way, Danny says hi.”
