Master of Plagues, D. B. Reynolds [best books to read fiction .txt] 📗

butt. Smoke wavered from around her waistline. More workers from the hive stung her along her legs and arms. Not wanting to kill her, they’d been instructed to inflict limited stings. By now, she looked like a young woman who’d been assaulted, her clothes and hair way out of place.
Queen Devorah lifted Dana back up in the air. She stared deep into her eyes with her own set of shifting yellow-to-red eyes. “You are indebted to my master.”
“Indebted for what?” Dana cried out. “But I haven’t done nothing to nobody.”
“Oh, Dana, how forgetful we can become.”
“Please, please, tell me, who is your master?”
“Remember this one thing, Dana. You will come crawling on your hands and knees to ask for the forgiveness of my master. You will offer both a public and private apology to my master.”
“Have you really been sent to plague me?”
“My master has ordered me and my hive workers to plague you until you recognize the evil deed that you perpetrated.”
Queen Devorah flapped her wings and the powers of the Universe were consecrated within her. As she faded away, so did the golden glow that dominated the break room. Dana looked around and there was nothing but toppled chairs and tables and vending machines. She saw her reflection through the glass of a vending machine. What a mess she was. Who would believe that she’d been attacked and humiliated by a hive of man-sized killer bees who spoke very good English? Time would either be her best friend or her worst enemy.


CHAPTER—22

LIGHT UP THE NIGHT

Thinking of crime in Miami brought some to the conclusion how movies like “Scarface” and television shows like “Miami Vice” and “CSI: Miami” were true-to-life. Stuart knew to be alert and aware. Unlike New York City, he’d been warned that Miami wasn’t some sleepy beach town. Natives enlightened him at the airport to be safe. Some told him to have big fun and bienvenidos around the city.
And like his hometown of New York, Miami had its share of gangs. Legions of thugs flourished around cheap hotels and restaurants in typically bad neighborhoods. Stuart cruised through the deplorable streets of Liberty City in his rented BMW convertible. My, my, the looks he received from the harshly-impoverished residents. Caution became his closest ally. Little did the young punks holding up gang signs know Stuart was protected by Universal powers.
He became aware of his immediate surroundings. He didn’t necessarily try and fit in with those who had mischief in their hearts. Stuart had no qualms about being a tourist. He turned the corner and drove down a dark alley. In the very section of Miami where the Play Station video game “Grand Theft Auto” was modeled after, gang members combed the streets looking for danger and adventure.
Liberty City housed half a million of Miami-Dade County’s African American and Afro West Indians. This wasn’t good for Marshall Higbie. Being a fiftyish white male with a medium build and slicked-back brown hair, he also who happened to be blind. Marshall walked down the semi-lit street of North 27th Avenue tapping his cane down onto the broken-up sidewalk. There were those veteran Liberty City residents who remembered the 1979 case which involved a white-on-black police fatal beating.
For those who didn’t want to forget, they passed the stories down to their children and grandchildren. The fury of knowing how five white policemen beat an innocent black motorist to death continued to spark the undying flames of anger. Them being acquitted by an all-white jury set off a disastrous riot. Unfortunately, for Marshall, whites made up less than one-percent of Liberty City’s population. Him walking through such a notoriously dangerous section of Miami at ten o’clock at night made him one of the bravest souls alive.
He didn’t know any different and couldn’t do any better. The check he received every month for disability was barely enough to survive on. Family members didn’t care. So-called friends were phony and out to cheat him. Five young punks getting off the Miami Metrorail near the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza Station spotted Marshall trying to find his way down the street. These disgusting young men who terrorized residents of Liberty Square housing projects had big plans for Marshall. A blind man not knowing his way around at nighttime was an easy target.
The leader of the “Fearsome Five” street gang was Raymond Fuller. Most knew him by the street name of “Ray Ray”. He robbed liquor stores and elderly people, assaulted rival gang members, and sold drugs on street corners, which earned him a sizeable rap sheet. Raymond stood six foot even and had hard muscles bulging from his lean frame. Those big juicy pimples in which teenagers dreaded erupted out of his entire face. Only an experienced dermatologist could tackle the type of acne he’d been cursed with. Raymond’s second-in-command was Timothy Ford, a brutal street warrior who went by the nickname of “Shorty Tim”.
Standing only five-foot-one, Timothy didn’t take crap off nobody. He stood by his creed that if someone bothered him, he’d bother them back, sometimes initiating the bothering himself. It honored him to have filled up a rap sheet which ranged from strongarm robbery to attempted murder. Going in and out jail made him proud. He knew not of a better life after growing up in a badly broken home.
Ranking under Timothy was another brutal street warrior named William Stokes. The total opposite of Shorty Tim, he stood six-foot-six, and weighed a solid two-hundred and fifty pounds. William earned the nickname “Big Will” from his massive body frame. Dancing around the fact that he could’ve been a possible NFL star, he regretted not listening to the oldtimers and following his dream. William did time for robbery, burglary, and auto theft.
Following in the ranks of William was Edward Taylor, better known in the thug culture as “Eddie T”. Edward served five years for the murder of his sister’s boyfriend, then turned around and did another two years for parole violation shortly after his first release. Fear of a vicious thug like him became widespread around Liberty City. Being unemployable and under-educated, he had nothing better to do than harm people. The youngest of the Fearsome Five was Damon Walker, a low level hoodlum who’d been nicknamed “Boolie” because of his dark charcoal skin.
Damon searched all through Liberty City for easy targets, often preying on the elderly and the weak. His criminal rap sheet was shamed with convictions which ranged from sexual deviant misconduct to robbery and larceny. There they were, five degenerate hoodlums, ones who couldn’t blame anyone for their trespassings and transgressions against other people. All five were hardened criminals.
All five carried the attitude they just didn’t care. All five had their eyes fixed on a helpless blind man. As a gang unit, all of them wore black jeans which sagged far below their backside,T-shirts that were musty and dingy, and black scarves wrapped around their sweaty heads. Pistols and an assault rifle were the weapons they carried on them at all times.
Raymond would be the mouthpiece for his band of rouges. “Yo, my man, Shorty Tim, when we rush that blind white dude, I want you to crack him in the back of the head with your pistol. You catch my drift, my man?”
“Awe, hell yeah,” Timothy complied, his pistol stuffed on the side of his waist.
“My man, Big Will,” Raymond continued. “I want you to pick him up and hold him in a chokehold. You got me, my man?”
“Gotcha,” William nodded, a long assault rifle stashed down into his left pants leg.
“Eddie T, I want you to crack him in the face while Big Will’s got’em in a chokehold. Follow me, partner?”
“I follow you,” Edward conformed, an automatic pistol wedged between his belt and waist.
“Brother Boolie, after Eddie T. splits his face open, I want you to go through his pockets and pull out all of his money. Something tells me that he just cashed his state check. You down with that, my man?”
“You know that I’m down with it,” Damon cooperated, a glock pistol stuffed in his pants.
“Cool,” Richard plotted, sliding his pistol to the middle of his pants. “Alright, it’s time to make our move. Everybody knows what they’ve gotta do.”
The plot against Marshall Higbie got transmitted back to Stuart. Sitting in a dark alley inside the parked BMW convertible, he construed every word spoken by Raymond and the others. Time was crucial. He had to act fast. The magical talisman slid from under his beach shirt. The usual middle three fingers circled around the mighty Hebrew lettering.
The dark Miami skies opened up. Clouds moved aside and eventually dissipated. Winds not coming from hurricane sources blew at monstrous speeds. The powers of the Universe were activated once again. Stuart concentrated hard until he summoned the very presence of Queen Devorah and the hive members. A golden light resplendently lit up the dark skies. Shooting across the sky and to the rescue of Marshall Higbie was Queen Devorah and her hive. Richard, Timothy, William, Edward, and Damon, they all looked up in the sky, thinking they were watching a live science fiction movie.
“Yo, Shorty Tim, what’s that?” asked Richard, snatching his pistol from out of his pants.
“I don’t know!” Timothy rejected, also pulling out his pistol for protection against the possible ambush.
“Looks like glowing monsters flying through the sky,” William misjudged, sliding the assault rifle out of his pants legs.
“Are those aliens from outer space?” Edward questioned his thug constituents, grabbing his pistol to avoid any attacks.
“No, those look like a buncha giant killer bees,” Damon noticed, aiming his pistol up towards the sky.
“This can’t be real,” Richard denied, ready to fire his pistol at any second.
What Richard and the others witnessed was real. Marshall dropped to his knees and held on to his walking stick. Queen Devorah raced downward from the sky. Her flapping wings radiated with a sensational golden glow. Balls of fire shot from both of her antennaes and hit the designated target. Richard rolled across the ground to put out the flames which burned half of his T-shirt. He aimed the pistol at Queen Devorah and fired several shots.
This truly angered the queen. Instead of discharging more fire from her antennaes, she decided to use the most beneficial weapon on her body. The flaming golden stinger rattled from behind. Richard fired more shots from an almost empty clip. The bullets went right through the queen like the thinnest of air. The angrier she got, the more