Krimson Mind: The Krimson Cycle Vol. 1

Chapter Thirty - Krimson

The digital clock in James's Neon glowed 11:45 PM when we rolled into Wright Park. The entire place was dark except for a few strategically located streetlights, which were glowing bright orange.

Wright Park was Dodge City's oldest and largest park area. It was around in the early 1800's. One of Dodge City's wealthiest residents donated the land so that everybody could use it. The city developed the area, planting massive grassy areas and large cottonwood trees which still stand to this day. Nearly a hundred years after he died, the city built Hoover Pavilion in honor of William Hoover, the original owner of the land.

Today, the park has a small zoo on its western edge, the Arkansas River to the south, and Second Street on its east edge. There is a main road that bisects the park. The Pavilion and the some playground equipment take up much of the eastern side of the park. Towards the southeast corner is the band shell. About two hundred yards to the west of the band shell is a set of bathrooms. Those have been closed and locked since about 1990. The sandstone bathroom building sits nearly dead center of a fairly open area. By our best guess, we figured that Alexioff would want to meet us there.

James turned left onto a little side road to the east of the band shell. The road ended in a tiny parking lot that might have been able to hold ten cars, as long as they were as small as the Neon. James parked and put the keys in the glove box.

"Why are you putting your keys there?" I thought to him.

"Because I can telepathically open the door locks." He thought back.

"Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense." I replied with a thought. "Mind over matter and all of that. What happens if you aren't..."

"No." He thought at me. "No bad thoughts. We can't afford it right now." He scolded me. I agreed with him, so I just nodded.

Max, James and I got out of the car and walked in silence over to the band shell. As soon as we reached the little metal benches where the audience sat during performances, all the lights in the park went out. Not that there were that many to begin with. Just a few put every hundred feet or so. Even though there were lights from acrossed the street, they couldn't seem to pierce the sudden gloom. That's when I knew that Alexioff had done this. It was a method of putting us on our guard. It wasn't a very good one. Okay, so Alexioff had just killed the power to the entire park. Not having any lights wasn't a big deal for James or I, but Max was suddenly at a very dangerous disadvantage.

"Guys, I can't see. You may want to get away from me." He warned us in a whisper. "This darkness is magical, though I don't know the spell offhand." He told us.

James was standing to his left, and I was on his right. When the lights went out, we were roughly ten feet away from Max. After his announcement, we doubled the distance. I watched as Max raised his right hand and a sphere of bright white light appeared above his head. Even with him dressed in all black, he was now marked as an incredibly easy target. That's when I began to worry. The lack of lights might not have bothered me or James. But Max, with all of his magical might, was still basically human. He couldn't operate in nearly complete darkness without risking an injury to himself, or worse one of us. Especially if that darkness was magical in nature, like he'd suggested. Not to mention with one move, he'd forced Max to reveal himself. And I was fairly certain that we were going to need him when this was all said and done. At least we'd tried to prepare. We knew that Alexioff was going to pull some sort of shenanigans. Now we knew what kind. Max had surmised that their best bet would be to take us out one at a time. Preferably from long range and with a high caliber. I had wanted to argue with him, but it made sense. Why risk having to deal with us one on one, when James had already proven how that usually turned out? No, the safest, maybe easiest bet would be to pick us off with a sniper rifle. So we dressed for a black out, and hoped like hell they didn't have any night vision or infrared scopes.

James and Max had worn similar garb. He had on a black t-shirt with black jeans on. He also had on a pair of heavy black leather steel-toed boots on. Topping all of this off was a black leather biker jacket. I had given him a pair of leather gloves so that he could handle the pair of knives that he'd borrowed from my hunting kit. The knives were made mostly of steel and had a high silver content. It wouldn't do for him to burn the shit out of himself while trying to bury them in body.

I was wearing my favorite battle gear. It was something that I'd developed while still training under Kaign. The design was my father's, but we had never had enough money to get the materials needed to create one. It was a body suit made of black leather. Each joint was covered in steel/silver chain mail. It allowed each joint to move while still affording decent protection. There was a strip of chain mail around the waist to allow for easier movement. To prevent a case of über-chaiffing, I had sewn a heavy canvas like cloth in the armpits and crotch of the body armor. Heavy boots and gloves completed the clothing portion of my outfit.

There was a belt around my waist that had a strap that went over my left shoulder. I kept several pouches on the belt. Each pouch held four vials of flaked silver in water. They acted as a sort of non-explosive silver grenade. Acrossed the strap, were six steel and silver throwing knives. The belt's buckle housed nine steel/silver, throwing stars. I was as ready as I could be.

Max, like James, had opted for a black jeans and t-shirt combo. However, Max's boots came up over his calves. There were six buckles that went down the front of his boots. The toe and heel of each boot had a steel plate with several outwards pointing two-inch long spikes on it. Max didn't have a coat on, but he had brought the gladius from the basement dojo. He'd used magic to both sharpen the blade and strengthen it. It was as good as we could get on such short notice. Max told me that he'd laid a couple of other enchantments on it, but he never said what they were. I only hoped that they kept him out of danger or something. I helped him rig up a sheath that went acrossed his back. That way the sword was out of his way while he cast spells.

As we got on the other side of the band shell, James got our attention.

"Stop." He called us telepathically, "They are close. Two of them are in the trees above us. Alexioff is about fifty yards beyond the bathrooms." He reported. "There is an argument as to whether or not they should take you out now Max. Alexioff just ordered them to stand down. He's got something else in mind, but he's a slippery bastard." James reported mentally.

"What about the third?" I thought to him.

"I'm not sure, I don't sense anybody else." He replied.

"Keep an eye out. Remember the bullet you took to the chest earlier?" Max whispered just loud enough for James to be able to hear it. "This is exactly like what I would have set up." Max growled.

"The pavilion's roof would make a good snipers nest." I mentally noted. I felt James mentally agreeing with me.

"Keep moving. We don't want to let them know that we have them marked." Max whispered as he drew his sword. I didn't point out that they could probably hear him, despite his attempt to whisper.

We slowly moved forward until we found ourselves between two of the oldest cottonwoods in the park. Max pointed to the roof of the bathroom building. I could see Isabella stand up. Then she turned around and faced us. She flipped us off with both hands, then leapt up into another tree near the small stone building and vanished among the broad green leaves.

"Bitch!" I swore aloud, rage suddenly building in my chest. After she ran off, I found my sword in my hand, and didn't remember having drawn it. I put it away, taking deep breaths so that I didn't do anything else stupid. We couldn't afford for me to lose my shit. Especially not now. Okay. So that whole tactic of staying quiet was pretty well blown to hell. They knew we were here. Now we just had to make them regret coming.

We continued our slow advance until we had just reached the bathrooms. About thirty yards ahead of us, another globe of light ignited above Alexioff's head. He moved about ten yards closer as we looked on.

"Welcome!" He called to us. "I'm so glad you came."