Bloodshot: Kingdom of Shadows (Kindle Worlds)

  BLOODSHOT

  * * *

  KINGDOM OF SHADOWS

  BLOODSHOT

  * * *

  KINGDOM OF SHADOWS

  Jonathan Janz

  Kindle Worlds

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2013 by Craig Shaffer.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program. All characters, scenes, events, themes, plots, and related elements of the Bloodshot remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Valiant Entertainment, Inc., its affiliates, or licensors.

  For more information on the Kindle Worlds publishing program: www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Published by Kindle Worlds

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  Digital ISBN: 9781477867730

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  I’d like to thank my wonderful agent Louise Fury for bringing Bloodshot to my door. I’d also like to thank my incredible pre-reader Tim for making a powerhouse of a character even stronger.

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  DEDICATION

  "Now when He…

  PART ONE Terror at the Museum

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PART TWO Into the Shadows

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  PART THREE Battle in the Kingdom

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  * * *

  Bloodshot: Kingdom of Shadows takes place roughly a year after Angelo Mortalli has been transformed into Bloodshot (who sometimes goes by the name Michael Lazarus). This novel is a reboot of sorts, though some of the events referenced in Bloodshot: Kingdom of Shadows will be familiar to longtime fans of the Bloodshot comics. I hope existing fans will enjoy this tale, and I hope new readers discover what an amazing character Bloodshot is. Citizens of New York City and art aficionados will notice that I’ve taken some liberties with the architecture of the Guggenheim Museum and the geography of NYC.

  This one is for my wife and my three children. Thank you for making me the happiest man in the world. And thank you for giving me the time to write a story about one of the most lethal men in the world.

  * * *

  “Now when He had said these things, He cried out, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Loose him, and let him go.’”

  John 11: 43–44

  PART ONE

  * * *

  Terror at the Museum

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  Malcolm hurried through Central Park and cursed himself for the fiftieth time since leaving his squalid studio apartment for not bringing his flask. Granted, he’d taken a few nips of brandy before setting off into the torrid July afternoon, but the alcohol hadn’t been nearly enough to soothe his jangling nerves or to prevent his hands from trembling. Irritated, Malcolm stuffed his hands in his pockets and brushed past a trio of black youths passing a basketball around. Because he had his head down and his mind on the rendezvous in the park, Malcolm inadvertently bumped the shoulder of one of the boys, and the basketball the kid had been spinning on one finger went skittering off into the bushes.

  The boy whirled toward Malcolm, hands raised in anger. “What the hell, man? You got a problem?”

  Malcolm kept moving, but he threw the boy an apologetic smile over his shoulder. “No problem here. Very sorry.”

  Judging from the obscenities the boys hurled after him, Malcolm’s apology had not been adequate. No matter, he thought. What they’ll do to me is nothing compared to what’s going to happen if I can’t persuade Michael Lazarus to help me today.

  The youths forgotten, Malcolm turned his mind toward Michael Lazarus. The name was a fake, of course, but Malcolm had trained himself to not even think Michael’s real name. Lazarus didn’t like to talk about his past.

  And when Malcolm rounded the corner, there Lazarus was sitting like some sort of modern god on a small green park bench. With his enormous girth and his cold, pitiless expression, Lazarus reminded him of one of the Easter Island statues. Only Lazarus wouldn’t remain immobile for long. Lazarus might look sedentary now, but the moment he began to move, all thoughts of statues would evaporate. Despite his size, Lazarus moved like a nimble freight train.

  Malcolm realized he had stopped and was standing there gape-mouthed in the middle of the concrete path. He forced his legs into motion again, though his eyes never left Lazarus’s awe-inspiring bulk. It was amazing, Malcolm reflected, that even after all this time the sight of the man—Was he to think of Michael Lazarus as a man?—was still such a shock to his system. Part of it was the sheer size of Lazarus. Six-foot-eight inches. Over 350 pounds, and not an ounce of that was waste or fat. The nanites coursing through Lazarus’s veins should have made him weigh even more—or at least it had always seemed so to Malcolm. But for whatever the reason, the microscopic mechanical devices that had replaced Lazarus’s blood weighed no more than human blood cells weighed. Malcolm had never fully understood the nanotechnology that had transformed Lazarus from a normal human being into whatever he was now; all he knew was what he saw, and his reporter’s eyes saw all.

  Saw too much, in fact. Especially lately.

  Malcolm drew nearer, and as he did he noticed that Lazarus was engaged in some sort of solitary activity, all the man’s attention focused on his left hand and his right forearm.

  “Happy Independence Day Eve,” Lazarus said.

  Malcolm gave a little start, his heart thumping. He’d had no idea Lazarus was aware of his presence. “Oh, hello mate,” Malcolm said, striving for a conversational tone of voice but failing miserably.

  “Of course it isn’t your Independence Day, is it?” Lazarus said.

  “No,” Malcolm answered. “It isn’t.”

  “You Brits have got St. George’s Day on April twenty-third, but that’s not really the same thing as our Fourth of July.”

  Malcolm scarcely heard him. Lazarus clutched a pair of black tweezers in his left hand and had his right arm lying in his lap with his forearm facing skyward. Lazarus had a slender piece of steel clutched between the tweezers; one end of the steel sliver tapered to a sharp point, the other end terminating in a narrow eyehole. A sewing needle, Malcolm realized. Just an ordinary sewing needle. The thing was long but incredibly thin. Even at its broadest point the needle was less than a millimeter thick.

  Malcolm watched in appalled fascination as Lazarus guided the tweezers—and the sliver of shining steel—toward the skin of his forearm.

  “What I find fascinating,” Lazarus went on, “is that April twenty-fourth, 1916, is the day the Irish gained their independence from your country.”

  Lazarus’s tone was as conversational as ever, but as he spoke, he punctured his forearm with the needle. Using the
tweezers, he slid the steel sliver deeper and deeper into his forearm.

  Malcolm looked on, light-headed. He could taste hot bile in the pit of his throat. His armpits had gone damp.

  “Has it ever occurred to you,” Lazarus continued, “that the two dates—the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of April—might be in some way symbolic?”

  The needle disappeared entirely within its sheath of flesh. As if he had just extracted a splinter, Lazarus placed the tweezers on the bench beside him and watched his forearm with an expression of mild interest.

  Malcolm too watched the forearm, the bile in his throat rising higher, scalding the soft tissue and making him increasingly nauseous.

  Because Lazarus’s forearm was moving. No, that wasn’t quite it, Malcolm decided. The flesh and tissue of the man’s immense forearm wasn’t just moving, it was squirming. Yes, squirming as though there were a billion tiny worms in there frantic to escape.

  “The English holiday ends at midnight,” Lazarus mused, “giving way to Irish independence, which of course begins in darkness.”

  The needle was moving too, Malcolm realized. Shuddering and twitching as if it had come to life, as if the nanites in Lazarus’s forearm had endowed it with its own will and ability to move. And the needle was moving now, moving steadily on toward the heel of Lazarus’s hand. Malcolm wanted to look away—needed to look away—but could not. Malcolm watched nervelessly as the sharp tip of the needle punctured the flesh just below the palm of Lazarus’s hand and proceeded to emerge from Lazarus’s body like a breaching torpedo fired from some undetected submarine. Then the needle lay unmoving in the palm of Lazarus’s hand. It glimmered as if newly polished.

  Malcolm swallowed.

  Lazarus retrieved the tweezers, brought them to the palm of his hand, and used them to lift the needle into the air. Examining the needle, Lazarus asked, “Have you known many Irishmen, Malcolm?”

  “Some,” he answered in a thick voice.

  “I knew an Irish terrorist once,” Lazarus said meditatively. “She called herself Lucy Westenra. Do you know where she got that name, Malcolm?”

  “Yes,” Malcolm said. He felt unsteady on his feet, but forced himself to answer. “She got the name from Dracula. The woman was defiled by Count Dracula and eventually rose from the dead.”

  A small smile touched Lazarus’s hard features. “I know a little something about rising from the dead.”

  “You do?” Malcolm asked, though he knew all about Lazarus. And his resurrection.

  “Sit down, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm did. He couldn’t take his eyes off the needle, however, which still hovered in the tweezers’ grip about eight inches in front of Lazarus’s scrutinizing gaze. Lazarus turned the needle this way and that, the narrow sliver of steel glinting in the midafternoon sunlight.

  “Now why should I think of her today?” Lazarus asked. “Why should I think of Lucy Westenra?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Malcolm said. It was the truth.

  Lazarus’s trance broke. He palmed the needle, pocketed it along with the tweezers. “So what’s up, Malcolm? You called this meeting.”

  Malcolm shook his head, his mind clearing. He felt better now that the needle and tweezers were out of sight. “That’s right, Michael, I did. I heard something this morning that might be of interest to you.”

  Lazarus sat back against the bench, his black crew cut taking on a bluish tint in the blazing sun. “I hope this isn’t something you read in that rag you work for.”

  Malcolm chuckled, relaxing a little. “I only write for it, Michael. I bloody hell don’t waste my time reading it.”

  Lazarus looked at him in mock surprise. “You sound sober, Malcolm. And here it is already past three o’clock.”

  “I wanted to make sure I made it here on time. Someone’s life might be at stake.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “It’s Neville Alcott.”

  Lazarus shot him a fierce look. “Time to come clean, Malcolm. Tell me everything.”

  Malcolm waited for a pair of female joggers pushing strollers to pass by. Then, in low tones, he said, “Neville’s unveiling a new project in half an hour. He’s introducing a new system of surveillance and communication that’s supposed to revolutionize New York’s counter-terrorism program. But there are several interested parties who don’t wish for this program to move forward. They feel as though the implementation of Neville’s anti-terror initiative might impede their efforts and compromise their business interests. These interested parties, they … well … they plan to assassinate Neville.”

  As Malcolm spoke, Lazarus’s hands balled into huge fists. My God, Malcolm thought. Like a pair of Christmas hams. Lazarus shifted slightly, and for the first time Malcolm noticed the bulges in the hip and the back of the trench coat he wore. Malcolm shivered.

  “Half an hour,” Lazarus said through clenched teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  Malcolm looked away, pretended to examine a nearby oak tree. “I was up late writing last night. I needed to catch up on my sleep.”

  Lazarus smiled grimly. “Who was she?”

  Malcolm gestured vaguely. “Oh, you know. Just an associate.”

  “And how much did you two drink?”

  “A couple bottles of wine. Perhaps a few other assorted spirits.”

  Lazarus appeared to lose interest. “Who’s behind it?”

  “My source isn’t certain,” Malcolm said.

  “What about Jillian?”

  Malcolm fingered his salt-and-pepper mustache. “My source didn’t mention her. But … I assume she’ll be there.”

  Lazarus’s great square jaw flexed, unflexed. “Where’s the presentation?”

  “Fifth Avenue,” Malcolm said. “The lobby of the Guggenheim Museum.”

  Lazarus stood—My Lord, Malcolm thought, like watching a new mountain range being formed—and regarded him. “Come on, Malcolm. We don’t have much time.”

  “Wait,” Malcolm said. “I’m going with you? But I have a deadline to meet. My piece on the triplets with pyrokinetic abilities is due by the morrow.”

  Lazarus grinned. It was a singularly merciless grin. “You can write your trash later. Right now we’ve got an assassination to prevent.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  Lazarus crossed Fifth Avenue without bothering to check for traffic. They’d stop for him. In his periphery, Lazarus saw Malcolm hurrying to keep up. Malcolm’s feathered hair, which alternated between black and old silver and was normally well tended, was now disheveled and pasted to his forehead in lank, sweaty strips. His clothing too was darkened with perspiration and appeared even more rumpled than it usually was.

  A hundred yards ahead of them a sign leaned against a wooden stand in front of the Guggenheim. A person with 20/10 vision couldn’t read the words printed in black letters on the beige placard, but Lazarus caught it all with a glance:

  TODAY

  MAIN LOBBY

  Widening the Watchful Eye:

  A New Approach to Counter-Terrorism

  Featured Speaker: Neville Alcott

  UPPER EXHIBITS

  Dadaism in Modern Spain

  Black-and-White Nudes and the New Noveau

  The Glorious Orbs: The Artwork of Elizabeth Austin

  They drew nearer the museum. From this distance the structure reminded Lazarus of a giant coffee cup. They had arrived here in plenty of time, the distance between Central Park and the museum relatively short. So Lazarus let himself relax and become aware of everything around him. He’d once read about a condition from which some people suffered that didn’t allow their brains to differentiate between one piece of information and another. The normal mind, the article explained, possessed the ability to focus on one sight, one smell, one particular sound, so that the rest of the flood of sensory details were no more than background noise or could even be ignored altogether. This condition prohibited differentiation; the objects in a person’s periphery w
arred with the object the person was trying to examine. The sound of a loved one’s voice would receive no more attention than the noise of the air conditioner humming or the traffic outside. The result was an unending and maddening assault of details that rendered it impossible for the sufferer to function like an ordinary human being.

  Lazarus could certainly relate to the flood of sensory details. He saw everything everyone else saw.

  Only Lazarus saw more.

  And more importantly, he could effortlessly differentiate between sounds and sights and other sensations. He did have the ability to focus. So much so that many people suspected he possessed psychic powers. Of course, Lazarus had begun to wonder the same thing himself lately. But most of the time he was content with the theory that the nanites simply made his senses keener, and that this allowed him to draw conclusions much faster and with far greater accuracy than the average person.

  Removing his mental filter the way most men would remove a ball cap, Lazarus opened himself up to his surroundings.

  In two seconds’ time, Lazarus observed …

  A wad of freshly dropped chewing gum, pink and hot and even stickier than it might have been due to the searing white sun. It smelled like artificial strawberries.

  One of Malcolm’s worn brown loafers coming down just beyond the wad of gum, the scuffed heel of the shoe missing the gum by the merest fraction of an inch.

  A businessman passing by. The man’s suit was expensive and well tailored, but when he beheld Lazarus, his eyes widened in envy and dismay. The man had a weak chin and wanted one like Lazarus’s. He also desired Lazarus’s height and bulk. The man looked away with an effort.

  The taste of the sandwich Lazarus had eaten for lunch. Ham on rye. A seed still wedged back in his hindmost molar.